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Creativity and Innovation are the Dynamic Duo of Soft Skills
Employers recruit and hire people who can bring their knowledge, skills and experience to bear at an organization to get things done, achieve goals and boost productivity. That’s true of people who work for a profitable business, a non-profit organization, a charity or even the government. It’s even true for farmers who breed animals that will generate milk, eggs, or some other product. The focus is on generating a return on the investment.
A typical farmer would be satisfied with having a flock of hens or geese that produce a lot of eggs. But what farmer wouldn’t love to have geese that lay golden eggs? Those geese would be invaluable. And if the farmer was savvy, he might even hire someone that can find ways to boost golden egg production, maximize the revenue generated by golden eggs and or even devise new, more-lucrative uses for those golden eggs. And the savviest farmers might even try to find more geese that lay golden eggs.
Employers would love to do that too. They want employees who are productive. But they’d really love to hire employees who can come up with ideas that lead to new revenue streams or even prodigies who can conjure concepts that revolutionize industries or even change the world. And they might also seek employees who can spot those brilliant ideas-in-the-rough and operationalize them so that they start pouring revenue.
Recruiting and Hiring Geese that Lay Golden Eggs
Of course, geese don’t lay golden eggs (although the cost of eggs these days might make one think that the eggs are made of gold). But there are people who can come up with ideas that lead to new revenue streams or can even revolutionize industries. These people possess one soft skill that is tantamount to being able to lay golden eggs. They are creative. And creativity can, in fact, be sought, identified, measured, harnessed and even boosted. As soft skills go, it is a superpower.
Moreover, organizations can also recruit and hire people who are adept at spotting genius ideas that others generate and then figuring out how to implement them. They can take an idea that others might think is just “ok” or perhaps even silly or ridiculous and see beyond its perhaps dubious premise to its potential greatness. Those people possess a soft skill that is related to creativity. They are innovative. As soft skills go, it is another superpower.
But, while creativity and innovation are closely related and are often used interchangeably as if they were synonymous, they aren’t. Creativity is the ability to generate new and original ideas, concepts, or solutions. It refers to the “thinking process” in which the mind explores possibilities, and the imagination cooks up something original. Creativity can exist without being put into practice. Just ask any inventor who patented an idea or device that was never operationalized.
On the other hand, innovation is the process of implementing creative ideas and turning them into something tangible, useful and potentially valuable. It’s the “doing” process where ideas are executed and achieved. So innovation takes creative ideas and brings them to life, often in the form of new products, services, or processes. Without a new idea or concept to bring to life, innovation cannot happen.
Therefore, you can have creativity without innovation (e.g., generating many ideas that are never implemented), but you cannot innovate without creativity (because you need ideas to implement). So, while creativity is the spark — the initial idea, innovation is the process of turning that spark into a flame and making it a reality. As Theodore Levitt put it, “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” Indeed. And, when combined, these two soft skills can conjure and germinate a seed of an idea and turn it into a $50-100 Billion product or service in the span of just a decade or two. Talk about geese laying golden eggs.
If you think stories about geese laying golden eggs is more fable than fact in the business world, think again.
Case Study– Netflix: Mail me a Movie
To see the concepts of creativity and innovation exemplified, look no further than these two golden geese: Marc Randolph (Creative) and Reed Hastings (Innovative), co-founders of Netflix. Before co-founding Netflix in 1997, Randolph and Hastings worked together at Pure Atria, a software company in Silicon Valley. Pure Atria was in the process of being acquired. While the paperwork was finalized, Randolph and Hastings continued carpooling to work daily. During that commute, Randolph would pitch Hastings ideas for another startup. The ideas were quite varied and had nothing to do with software. Customized shampoo. Special baseball bats. Customized dog food. Each day, Randolph would pitch an idea every day Hastings would pick it apart, explaining all the reasons why it could not succeed. Randolph was not deterred, constantly generating new ideas and pushing the boundaries of what was possible. He pitched Hastings hundreds of bad ideas.
One day, Randolph pitched the idea of mailing movie DVDs to customers’ homes as an alternative to renting VHS video cassettes at retail locations such as Blockbuster Video. He saw the potential to leverage the internet and the growing popularity of DVDs to create a convenient way for customers to get movies without having to go to the video store. When Randolph told his wife about the idea for Netflix, she said: “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Where others saw nonsense, Hastings saw a diamond in the rough. Netflix was born. It was Hastings who brought the strategic thinking and operational expertise to turn Randolph’s idea into a viable business. (Hastings also provided 90% of the startup capital.) They built a website in six months (which was fast back then). On the first day, the site crashed after being live only 12 minutes. They rebooted the site within hours, and Netflix ended its first day in business with 130 orders for DVD purchases. But Hastings convinced Randolph that they needed to walk away from the buy-and-sell DVD business model and focus on DVD rentals instead. Then they accelerated their growth by dropping their late fees, which was a major pain point for Blockbuster customers. They also created a “queue” on their website where customers could make a list of movies they wanted to watch. And they switched their monetization model to a monthly subscription fee. It was Hastings who focused on building the infrastructure, developing the subscription model, and scaling the company. He had the ability to take the creative idea and turn it into a profitable, scalable business.
By 2000, Netflix was growing fast. Although it was still a relatively small company, it was clear the idea was a winner. That year, Hastings and Randolph tried to sell Netflix to Blockbuster for $50 Million. Like Randolph’s wife, Blockbuster’s leadership thought Netflix was ridiculous and rejected the proposal. Then in early 2002, Amazon tried to buy Netflix for $15 Million. Netflix turned Bezos down. That rejection was validated months later when Netflix held its IPO in May 2002, offering 5.5 million shares at a price of $15. That gave Netflix an instant valuation of $82.5 Million.
The rest is history. By January 2010, just 8 years after going public, Netflix had a market cap rate of $3 Billion. Meanwhile Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002 due to challenging losses of $900 Million due to strong competition from Netflix. Netflix’ success story did not end there. By January 2015, Netflix’ market cap rate was $26 Billion. By January 2020, it was $151 Billion, and in January 2025 , it was $417 Billion. All this from two people with the dynamic duo of soft skills: creativity and innovation.
While Randolph’s creative vision provided the foundation, Hastings’ innovative execution ensured its success. Without Randolph’s initial idea, Hastings wouldn’t have had a groundbreaking concept to take to market. Conversely, without Hastings’ ability to implement and scale, Randolph’s idea might have remained just that – an idea.
Remember, DVDs by mail was not Randolph’s first idea or even his hundredth idea, and it wasn’t Hasting’s first or second or even third business venture. He’d already developed and sold numerous companies. These two golden geese produce golden eggs. It’s what they do. And there are countless stories of people like them… creative and innovative.
Why Creativity and Innovation Are Your Organization’s Most Valuable Assets
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations are constantly searching for a competitive edge. While technical skills and industry knowledge remain essential, there’s a growing recognition of the paramount importance of soft skills; none more important than creativity and innovation. These are qualities that can transform a company from surviving to thriving to revolutionizing. As author Edward de Bono, originator of the term Lateral Thinking – who dedicated his life to inspiring, encouraging and enabling people to be better and more creative thinkers, and created The Six Thinking Hats® method to enable individuals and teams to be more receptive to new ideas — said, “As competition intensifies, the need for creative thinking increases. It is no longer enough to do the same thing better . . . no longer enough to be efficient and solve problems.” Creativity and innovation are the game changers.
Think of creative and innovative employees as golden geese. They don’t just produce ordinary eggs; they lay golden ones – groundbreaking ideas, novel solutions, and transformative strategies that can propel your organization to unprecedented heights. While other soft skills like communication and teamwork are undeniably valuable, they’re more like essential tools in the toolbox. Creativity and innovation, on the other hand, are the architects, the visionaries, the drivers of progress.
Next week, we’ll look more deeply at the value of these super soft skills. How to recruit for these skills and how to manage people with these abilities. Stay tuned.
Quote of the Week
“The paradox of creativity and innovation is this: CEOs often complain about lack of innovation, while workers often say leaders are hostile to new ideas.”
Patrick Dixon. Building a Better Business
© 2025, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
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