Good ideas come from doing things differently, exploring new territory and taking risks. Yet while most of us today claim to value creative thinking and thinkers, great ideas die all the time. Why?

Where are all the good ideas dead? In the heart or in the head?

Everything starts from an idea, and innovative organizations understand that ideas can come from anywhere. Once great ideas have shown up, they have to be implemented somewhere. The “heart” of the issue lies in an organization’s ability and willingness to foster creativity.

These days, most organizations herald innovation, claiming to value creative thinking and thinkers. Yet many operate in ways guaranteed to limit or squash whatever creativity their people have. Today’s work environment is often one of the most potent creativity killers.

“Unless the culture honors ideas and supports risk-taking, innovation will be stifled before it begins,” according to Joyce Wycoff, co-founder of InnovationNetwork and the author of several books on innovation and creativity.

So why do so many good ideas die? Very often, it’s because of fear — whether the person’s or the organization’s upper echelon.

There’s this widespread notion that fear somehow spurs creativity, yet this seems counter-intuitive for a number of reasons.

For one, many creative ideas are never even spoken aloud because the generator of the idea is afraid of not being heard or, worse, being ridiculed for such an outrageous idea. Other times, someone may keep an idea to oneself for fear that it will not be properly attributed.

“‘Why should I tell you about my new idea if you are only going to put me down’ (so that you stay on top) is a common refrain,” noted Carl Robinson, Ph.D., a few years back at Advanced Leadership Consulting. “Or, ‘If you’re going to take credit for my ideas … I’m going to keep them for myself,’ even if it means stifling our/my creativity.”

Other times, the creativity killer may be the executive micromanaging, sticking with what’s worked in the past and generally covering his or her own butt. These stifle the cross-fertilization of ideas essential in highly creative environments.

According to Carmine Coyote at the Slow Leadership blog:

Fear of producing still more work, fear of censure and fear of losing face foster cultures that are risk-averse; together with an attitude that protecting your butt always takes precedence. People become too afraid — or too tired — to do more than stick with what they know and what’s worked before.

As with so many peripheral business goals, lack of buy-in from the top level keeps the creative idea stagnant. Alternatively, hovering executives limit or downright kill the creative urge. Either way, the implication is that the executive doesn’t trust people, and that deflates creativity.

Many listen with less than half attention, note the risk and jump immediately to what have become the key questions, Coyote noted: “How does this solve our current problems? What’s the payoff? How much by when?” Of course, when the answer is a long-term project, with long-term potential but little in the way of quick returns, the inspired idea is shot down.

“When pressure’s intense, creativity is one of the first casualties,” Coyote wrote.

To avoid this, remove fear from the organization and make creative thinking part of the culture. Innovation means doing something new — something that may indeed fail. Sure, to share an idea is to put oneself at risk, but if people fear failing, they will not contribute their ideas. Imagine the impact this has on business innovation. Fear seems to have no place in a creative firm.

On the other hand, if a business is doing all it can to foster creativity, perhaps it is not the managed environment that is the problem. Perhaps it is the seeming shortage of ideas, in which case we might say good ideas are killed “in the head.”

One misperception about creativity and innovation is that new ideas simply appear, according to Regina M. Pisa, chairman and managing partner of Goodwin Procter LLP. “There is a certain romance to the notion of the ‘brainstorm,’ where revolutionary ideas magically present themselves. It is a comforting notion, that new ideas will simply arrive unannounced. It also puts the onus of delivery on the idea and not the individual,” Pisa wrote in The Professional and Business Woman’s Journal last year.

Truly, breakthrough ideas rarely hatch overnight…

Yet many people, fearful that they’ll never have another idea “as good as this one,” will “save” it for later. “The truth is, the more ideas you have, the more ideas you’ll have,” a senior innovation consultant recently wrote at Innovate Forum.

“You’ve got to prime the pump and leave the faucet on,” the Innovate Forum consultant wrote.

For ideas on how to overcome mental blocks to creativity, check out our Clever Ideas for Creative Thinking from earlier this summer.

Earlier:

Clever Ideas for Creative Thinking

Cultivate Corporate Creativity

Resources

How to Kill Creativity
by Carmine Coyote
Slow Leadership, April 2006

The Big Ten Innovation Killers and How to Keep Your Innovation System Alive and Well
by Joyce Wycoff
InnovationNetwork

Ten Practical Steps to Keep Your Innovation System Alive & Well
by Joyce Wycoff
InnovationNetwork

Formally Foster Innovation and Inevitable Change
by Regina M. Pisa
The Professional and Business Woman’s Journal, February 2006

Creativity Killers – Watch Out!
by Carl Robinson, Ph.D.
Advanced Leadership Consulting, 2004

10 Reasons Why Most Ideas Die
by Sue McPhail
Innovate Forum, July 17, 2006

Creativity Killers! 7 Sure-Fire Ways to Kill Your Creativity – And How to Avoid Them
by Dan Goodwin
ESL Teachers Board

Top Three Creativity Killers
by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain
31Three, March 2006