It’s impossible to work in business today and not have someone – a supervisor, client or colleague – use the words creative or strategic.
Ingrained in our daily conversation, these words are used so often their meaning is often diluted. It’s to the point that it’s often difficult for the person on the receiving end to know what to do.
An earlier post –– explains both the definitions and the artwork to the right. It’s also interesting to see how the definitions vary.
The Differences between Creative or Strategic Thinking
Strategic Thinking is one’s ability to judge whether a specific situation or piece of information is right or wrong. This is based on whether that situation or information can help achieve a positive business outcome or solve a business problem or issue. Strategic Thinking reduces gathered information down to . How accurately and/or quickly a person can extract insight from general information is a useful definition of ‘how strategic someone is.’
Creative Thinking is one’s ability to create as many potential ideas as possible. In turn, this helps achieve a positive business outcome, either by solving a problem or issue or fulfilling a wish or a need. Creative thinking expands upon the insights of strategic thinking by creating alternative plans, solutions or options. How many different ideas a person can quickly create is a useful definition of ‘how creative someone is.’
Strategic Thinking is Left Brain Activity. It likes analyses, comparisons, categories, objectivity – anything that creates order.
Creative Thinking is Right Brain Activity. It likes colour, space, rhythm and images. It prefers to daydream, visualize, generate ideas – anything that stimulates the imagination.
Strategic Thinking asks: How can we organise?
Creative Thinking asks: What else can we do?
Strategic Thinking is convergent: it brings information together.
Creative Thinking is divergent: it shows differing or deviating sides to information.
Strategic Thinking: This side sees trees.
Creative Thinking: This side sees forests.
Yes, before you yell at me …
‘Left brain’ and ‘right brain’ joined the general vernacular when Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981 for his concept of the split-brain lateralisation. But, time and research have proven these concepts are not so neat. While some brain functions are obviously controlled by one side, people are neither left brained nor right brained. Just as a person is not singularly strategic or creative.
From Putting Your Company’s Whole Brain to Work by Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus. “The most widely recognised cognitive distinction is between left-brained and right-brained ways of thinking. This categorisation is more powerful metaphorically than it is accurate physiologically; not all the functions commonly associated with the left brain are located on the left side of the cortex and not all so-called right-brained functions are located on the right. Still, the simple description does usefully capture radically different ways of thinking.“)
When someone has told you in the past to be strategic or creative, what did you think they meant? Please add your thoughts or comments below.
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