Difference Between Creativity and Innovation

In this rapidly changing world, being creative and innovative is the key to make an impact and get along with the changes. Some of you might be wondering about what actually is creativity and innovation and how it differs. These terms are very familiar in our discussions and some people even use both these terms for the same contexts interchangeably. Creativity is something related to imagination whereas innovation implies more about implementation. Creativity is something that refers to conceiving or visualizing a fresh plan or idea whereas innovation is about introducing something new or the first time. Both creativity and innovation are inevitable in today’s fast-paced modern workplace.

Definition of Creativity and Innovation

A person is creative when he comes up with fresh ideas, solutions, alternatives or possibilities in a different and unique way. In most cases, it will be exciting, expressive and imaginative. The ideas should be original but unpredictable. It is a mind-blogging and brainstorming activity which brings up thoughts beyond imagination. Creativity is always subjective giving no way for measuring it. One can be creative in any context as a way of solving problems or as a form of expression. A person is innovative if he can apply a fresh idea into the society, organization, government or business that can make an impact or create some value. Innovation is always about a smarter and better way of doing things. One can define it as doing something fresh for the first time. When talking on a business perspective, it can be a change that can make a new edge to the productivity and performance.

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Innovations can always be radical or incremental.

Key Differences Between Creativity and Innovation

• While creativity is about being imaginative, innovation is about being productive.
• Innovation is quantifiable in most cases; but creativity is not quantifiable.
• Creativity is all about thinking something new whereas innovation is more about introducing something new.
• Money consumption is not involved in creativity but innovation involves money consumption.
• There is no risk involved creativity but innovation is always associated with a considerable risk.
• Creativity is associated with terms like ideas, imagination, thoughts, and expression, concepts, brainstorming and creative process. Innovation is associated with terms like process, value, invention, doing, action, implementation, enable, useful, change, new and measurable.
• In a business organization, creativity comes up with new plans so that they can give a competition and be more flexible in the market. On the other hand, innovation is about taking up these novel ideas and developing on it to create useful and practical solutions. In simple words, innovation is converting theory into action.

In modern competitive business conditions, the term creativity is often overlooked but they fail to understand that creativity alone doesn’t make a difference but innovation does.

Examples

In a workplace, there can be brainstorming meetings where employees come up with new ideas that is unique and original. Then there is another team that considers these ideas to make positive changes to the company situation. It need not be always about introduction of new products but about tweaks to existing products, processes, or interactions. In another case, the electronics company LG released a novel screen type into the market which is known for its flexibility as it rolls up similar to a newspaper. The thought of developing such a type of screen is creativity but its actual introduction to the market is innovation. In fact, a device, process or product that never existed before is referred to as invention which is also an innovation. However, every innovation need not be an invention. For instance, if your company went digital for the very first time and published a website, that is an innovation. But it is not an invention as several other companies already have a website.

Conclusion

To conclude, even when both these terms are different, innovation is very much tied to creativity. In fact, pushing creative ideas into a productive action is innovation and the expectations are always positive.

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Talking on a business perspective, both creativity and innovation is irreplaceable for the success of an organization. One can be creative by asking questions, researching & exploring fresh ideas, drawing conclusions, and expanding the thinking arena. However, one can be innovative only by taking risks, asking questions, experimenting, and observing things. On a run for trying to do things differently, companies are always in chase of creativity but what is lacking is innovation that puts ideas to work. So encourage employees to be more creative by giving them flexible platforms to think aloud but at the same time develop a team to assess its risks and utilize its possibilities for better practical results.