Creativity and innovation are often used interchangeably.
Especially by people who aren’t creative. They tend to throw both words around like there’s no tomorrow. Drop them in any conversation where they want to look smarter.
But creativity and innovation have very different meanings.
Creativity is really about changing perceptions. It requires thinking, often deep thinking. It’s a discontinuous process that doesn’t follow mechanistic cause and effect logic. It can happen in an instant. It challenges an individual. Creativity envisions a new system, a new world, a new way.
Innovation is all about reality. It requires action and poses a challenge for a team. It’s a continuous process that takes a long time to come to life. It doesn’t generate a new system but rather delivers something new to an existing system.