What would you prefer to be, systematic or creative?

What would you prefer to be, systematic or creative?

What would you be, systematic or creative?
“Never confuse motion with action.” —Ernest Hemingway
 
“I am a creative person, I need the freedom to innovate.” A comment from a developer caught my attention. We were talking about working in a systematic way, and following certain development guidelines and processes.
 
Sometimes there is a conflict between innovation and processes. Processes are considered to be bounded, whereas creativity is boundless.
 
“I understand.” I was trying to explain. “However for the innovation to be useful to business, it must follow some guidelines.”
 
“Discovery of a light bulb is often taken as the best example of innovation. Right? Do you know the story of this invention? A lot of experiments were done in a very systematic way, a lot of observations were documented meticulously before a really useful light bulb went into production.”
 
If they had failed to keep a track of the thousands of changes they made to fix the problems, they would be still trying to invent it :)”
 
Can we define innovation as a systematic expression of creativity, to harness its power for business outcomes?
 
Are you creative? Or Systematic? Or both?
 

Share this post