Cambridge Business Association
Creative Strategy
Book

Creative Strategy

Reconnecting Business and Innovation

Chris Bilton and Stephen Cummings
Wiley-Blackwell, 2009
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Academics Chris Bilton and Stephen Cummings propose making creativity a part of your daily operations. With graphics and examples from business, life, literature and the rehearsal room at England’s Royal Shakespeare Company, the authors demonstrate why success requires carefully managed and nurtured innovation. Their writing, unfortunately, is dry, with references to obscure footballers, among other incongruous examples. Nonetheless, getAbstract recommends this innovative treatise to corporate CEOs, overhaul specialists, troubleshooting consultants, middle managers, business historians and anyone who wants to visit the juncture of left and right brain to see how they can merge to produce effective strategy.

Summary

Creativity and Strategy: Different Addresses, Same Domain

From as far back as the very first business-practice books, experts have depicted the forces of Creativity and Strategy as different realms opposing each other across an unbridgeable divide. But in reality, they are – and should be – different branches of the same army, united to serve a common purpose. The term “creative strategy” describes a central integrative process that works in good and bad times, across generations, and as a partner to business invention and structure.

Creativity arises from a “bisociative” frame of mind that is comfortable with contradictions. It creates value by presenting new solutions while rewriting the context through which your business views its challenges. Yet, most often, business management flows in the opposite direction – obsessed with planning, a uniform corporate culture and certain success. Creativity requires open and unstructured time and space, energy driven by diverse viewpoints and the recognition that failure can happen in business, but you should learn from it.

To build a more effective strategy, start with greater “orientation...

About the Authors

Chris Bilton, head of the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies at England’s University of Warwick, wrote Management and Creativity. Stephen Cummings, head of the Victoria Management School, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, wrote The Business Strategy Pathfinder.

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