In my familiar stomping ground of business and technology, the term ‘Creative Edge’ is often used to sell an organisation’s capability. But what does it mean and how is it achieved?
Let’s start with ‘Creative’. In the business context, it embraces originality, innovation, visioning and transformation, In many high-tech companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon, creativity is the name of the game. So what about ‘Edge’? In the same context, it means superiority, which, for the companies mentioned, goes hand-in-hand with creativity. They feed off each other.
There are many companies, however, that might depend on a range of technologies, old and new, embedded in highly critical systems and infrastructures, for example rail transportation networks. These will configure products and systems that have significantly longer lives than, for example, Apple products. For these companies, ‘Edge’ is just as important as in the fast-moving information technology sector, but the ‘Creative’ culture is quite different.
Whereas a Microsoft engineer will be motivated to design and get to market, products and systems that outperform the competition on a daily basis, a rail systems engineer has to accept the rail network will always be a mix of legacy systems, modern technology and ongoing projects aimed at developing a greener and more efficient network. Both sectors require first-class engineering talent, but the challenges they face are quite different.
Research suggests there is a positive correlation between creativity and happiness; there is also evidence of a virtuous circle between the two, so each positively reinforces the other over time. When it comes to recruiting and developing engineers, does this mean the high-tech companies, delivering products with lifecycles of perhaps a couple of years, have an advantage over organisations that develop systems designed to be in service for decades? That doesn’t need to be the case.
Whatever the product, system or service that an organisation is delivering, engineers love to solve problems, and it is the problem-solving environment that provides a fertile bed for creativity, but it has to be encouraged. Regrettably many risk-averse organisations have cultures where deviating from the norm is actively discouraged….”That’s not the way we do things around here”. This article is not focussing on culture change per se, but clearly it is part-and-parcel of encouraging creativity.
Peter Drucker’s quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, has stood the test of time. Company bosses can preach ambitious vision statements, but if they are out of kilter with their company’s underlying culture, they are very unlikely to become a reality. Culture is an emergent property of individual employee behaviours, but the collective characteristic is far more dominant than the individual influence. So, for example, if an employee with experience of working with companies where they enjoyed a high degree of autonomy, is seduced to join an organisation with an exciting vision statement but with a command-and-control management style, they will be unlikely to succeed.
When companies recruit, the process is typically one-sided; the company interviews the applicant, not the other way around. Perhaps it should be a two-way exchange. After all, if the company is investing in bringing talent on board and the talent is contributing their skills and expertise to the business, both parties should ensure they are receiving a fair return on their investment. Arguably, both sides should ensure a good culture match. From the potential employee’s perspective, the company should not just be assessed from its vision, but also its past achievements. Is its future aspiration compatible with where it has come from? Apple is synonymous with innovation and creativity. Its journey since it was founded in 1976 has been super impressive, with numerous game-changing innovations. But in recent years, iPhone models have been brought to market with incremental improvements, none of which can be described as game-changers. Nevertheless, Apple watchers remain convinced that technological evolution will lead to revolution, because it’s in the company’s DNA. So past achievements are an important factor when assessing company culture.
So returning to the original question: what does ‘Creative Edge’ mean and how is it achieved? There shouldn’t be too much debate about the ‘what’ although the context obviously varies in different sectors and organisations. The ‘how’, on the other hand, is dependant on continuously recreating a competitive culture, individually and collectively, throughout the organisation.
It’s easier said than done!
