Creativity: it just doesn’t add up

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In business there is an eagerness to develop formulas for everything. The act of creating a product, discovering a market, or connecting with an audience has become boiled down to component parts. Commerce is about things like playbooks, flow charts and growth hacks.

In the quiet competition between art and science, the latter is dominating the field. The risk is that in the march of empiricism, leaders are deprioritising creativity (note, they’re never able to do this for long – when creativity disappears, companies tank – see image).

I’ve come to think that the problem is that creativity can’t be codified. There’s no replicable process when it comes to dreaming up something helpful. While there are metrics for innovation, imagination is altogether trickier to pin down. But there is one formula of my own invention, and it conveys the makeup of great creativity (it’s even a percentage, for you mathematicaphiles).

Great work is comprised of two things in the following proportions.

1. 80% idea

2. 80% execution

There was a moment in history when businesses assumed that a profusion of ideas was enough. Creatives became preoccupied with crowd-sourcing and collaboration. Those with the most ideas were at the biggest advantage. But ideas are just the first 80%. Ideas don’t arrive fully formed. The first concept is just a platform from which to invent further. In short: your idea must grow through execution. And that’s the second 80%.

Don’t just think about the idea. Think about the opportunity the idea gives you to execute something that astonishes, beguiles, and attracts your audience. Go the extra 60% on execution.