Creativity and Business? Or ‘Creativity versus Business’?
Some people regard creativity and business as being like oil and water – they just don’t mix. They think it’s a question of choosing between creativity or business. I disagree.
At a conference I attended on the theme of Creativity, some people understood creativity to mean ‘art’, done by artists of one kind or another – all of them wearing T-shirts. These artists realised that sometimes (unfortunately) they had to speak with beings from a parallel universe, ie the business world – people in Suits who think differently and speak in strange tongues – and inevitably don’t understand them. I reject the idea that business and creativity are incompatible opposites. At that conference I pointed out that I am both a published poet and an MBA, which perhaps unsettled a few people for a moment. I went on to say that my best creativity is not my poetry but my inventiveness within the business world, adapting ideas and methods to new circumstances across the boundaries of industries, sectors and cultures internationally. Other delegates confirmed that they had seen far more creativity in engineering firms than in some advertising agencies. Creativity is not the monopoly of the ‘artist’: it is much wider than that and can be found in education, science and elsewhere. Creativity is in and around us all.
‘Creative Alchemy’
The most exciting creativity, I believe, is the alchemy of blending apparent opposites, what we often call ‘art’ and ‘science’, recognising that they are not opposites at all, from which we have to choose either/or in a binary fashion, but the yin and yang of a whole. This book is about bringing together creativity and business as allies. It’s about combining the best ideas of both ‘T-shirts’ and ‘Suits’ in the business of creativity, turning creative talent into income streams.
Successful creative entrepreneurs embrace both creativity and business. Perhaps they don’t use business jargon and maybe profit is not their primary aim. Sometimes they will proceed on a hunch, or put their success down to good luck, but there is nevertheless a method behind their apparent madness, whether they recognise it or not.
The art of business is to select from a palette of infinite choices to draw together a specific product or service, with specific customers’ needs, in a way that adds up financially. The resulting picture is a unique business formula for a successful enterprise.
Naturally, creative businesses tend to have a high concentration of new ideas in their product or service. Successful organisations of all kinds combine all the essential business elements creatively. Successful creative enterprises need to have a creative product or service; they also need to invent a special and workable formula of all the essential ingredients of business.
The Art of not ‘Selling Out’
I am often asked whether making a business out of ‘art’ or ‘creativity’ inevitably means ‘compromising artistic integrity’ or in other words, ‘selling out’. My answer is that it can do, but it doesn’t have to. The solution is in the formula mentioned above which refers to specific products/services and specific customers who, if chosen carefully are essential ingredients in the formula for success. If you combine the wrong customers with your product or service there will be a mismatch leading to a choice between selling out or going bust. You cannot sell all of your products to all customers all of the time, but if we apply some creativity to selecting the right customers, choosing appropriate products from our portfolio, whilst making the books balance at the same time, we can devise a feasible business formula.
What is your own definition of success?
What to do next
• Reflect on your own thoughts about creativity and business. Do you see them as opposites, in conflict? Or do you see them as complementary, coming together in harmony at the heart of your creative enterprise?