They Have a Better Idea ... Do You?

A blank sheet of paper can be liberating -- and intimidating. where do great new ideas come from? How can you and your company create more of them? We asked 14 creative people to answer those questions. Nike's Tinker Hatfield says creativity is one part inspiration and many parts collaboration. David Kelley, the world's most celebrated industrial designer, urges creative people to "fail faster so they can succeed sooner." Clar Evans, a 40-year veteran of Hallmark Cards, calls the creative process "civilized tenacity." Bill Flanagan, vice-president of programming for VH1, says the real test of creativity is whether you can rise to the challenge when you don't feel like it. So read these contributions and be more creative. Unless you have a better idea.

Tinker Hatfield

Vice President, Design and Special Projects
Nike Inc.
Beaverton, Oregon

Creativity is a two-step process that starts with collaboration. When Michael Jordan and I sit down to design a shoe, the first thing I do is listen. We're trying to design shoes that help Michael run faster, jump higher, stop quicker, avoid injury, and look as cool and fashionable as possible. He usually has a clear sense of where he wants to go and then we work together to create a road map.

The next step is inspiration. I never know where my design ideas will come from. Air Jordan VI was inspired, in part, by the Batboot I designed for Michael Keaton in Batman. The inspiration for

Jordan VII was a colorful poster for National Public Radio that I saw while wandering around Portland. Soak up everything: fashion, art, architecture, music, graphic design, whatever relates (or doesn't) to your field. This varied palette, blended with the science of research, is what inspires the creative spark.

Tinker Hatfield's creations include Air Jordan basketball shoes, Air Max running shoes, and Andre Agassi footwear.

Dorothy Leonard

Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School
Boston, Massachusetts
dleonard@hbs.edu

The most creative people I know always expose themselves to a wide range of perspectives -- cultural, organizational, personal. They understand that breakthrough creativity occurs at the intersection of previously unconnected planes of thought. What goes for people goes for companies. Here are four ways to connect the unconnected in your company:

1. Hire opposites. Gerald Hirshberg, president of Nissan Design International, hires people in pairs -- and makes sure the people he hires bring different perspectives to the job. First he'll hire a Bauhaus designer, someone rational and structured in her thinking. Then he'll hire an artist obsessed with pure form, color, and rhythm. This pair won't agree on anything -- which can spark wonderful creative abrasions.
2. Create diverse teams among current employees. Not diversity by just race and gender; you also should create intellectual diversity. Mixing cognitive perspectives -- different ways of seeing the world -- yields new creative insights.
3. Invite visitors from alien cultures. Xerox PARC recruits anthropologists to work with computer-science teams. At the Harvard Business School, we bring in pure scientists to complement our engineers, economists, and operations researchers.
4. Visit alien cultures yourself. Don't just benchmark companies like yours. Visit companies that are decidedly unlike yours.

Dorothy Leonard is the author of "Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation" (Harvard Business School Press, 1995) and has conducted innovation courses for corporations such as Kodak, AT&T, and Johnson & Johnson.

David Kelley

Chief executive officer
Ideo Product Development
Palo Alto, California
dkelley@ideo.com

At Ideo, we believe that enlightened trial and error beats the planning of flawless intellects. In other words, we fail faster to succeed sooner. The reason is simple: the best solutions to most problems are rarely the most obvious. So we brainstorm lots of ideas, prototype the most promising ones, and learn from those that don't work.

It's much easier -- and safer -- to bog down in elaborate planning exercises. It might seem irresponsible to start without a clear direction, but if you invest a lot of time in this stage, there's a tendency to stick with an idea even if it isn't the best one. This is a prescription for real failure. Learn to let go. Risk choosing nothing over something. The more you experiment, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you create.

David Kelley's first creation was a milestone in aviation history: the Lavatory Occupied sign on the Boeing 747.