The world faces an abundance of complex problems that demand attention. To address these challenges, genuine creativity, sustainability, and innovation are required. Unfortunately, most corporate practices inadvertently hinder these essential elements, leading to uninspired results and design flaws. In this article, I delve into ten ways corporations inadvertently stifle creativity, sustainability, and innovation; the figure below illustrates these inhibiting factors.
Ten ways to kill creativity, sustainability, and innovation are:
- Focus on innovation theater instead of sustainable innovation; neglect a holistic purpose-driven approach and keep it superficial, theatrical, and cozy. How to revive.
- Neglect personal innovation and social innovation in the process of corporate innovation. How to revive.
- Involve mainly left-brainers in the innovation process; systematically promote only non-technical bookkeepers on the board of directors, focusing on shareholder value rather than purpose-driven. How to revive.
- Don’t look at the bigger context holistically; focus mainly on parts of the problem. How to revive.
- Don’t be genuine, authentic, and empathic; don’t be human-centered and purpose-driven. How to revive.
- Neglect genuine sustainability; focus on the symptoms rather than the root causes and neglect empathy. How to revive.
- Make your design process linear and ad-hoc, with an endpoint; don’t make it a never-ending, non-linear, circular, iterative, incremental, cyclic, and concentric process. Neglect cultivating a purpose-driven design culture. How to revive.
- Develop innovative and imaginative ideas by relying heavily on cozy and theatrical group meetings. Neglect critical thinking, and don’t be a loner. How to revive.
- Don’t emphasize the designer’s imagination and disruption; focus on knowledge rather than imagination. How to revive.
- Solve problems using the same thinking that created them. Don’t nurture authenticity, resilience, personal integrity, and an open growth mindset. How to revive.
The systematic killing of creativity, sustainability, and innovation within corporate environments is a matter of concern. It’s illustrated by my following articles:
“Why OceanGate’s Design Approach Sucks”
“How STEM Education is Failing in the Age of AI‘
Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.
Orlando, Florida | tpsi@live.com | Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116
Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Design-Driven, Human-Centered, and Purpose-Driven Innovation in Orlando. He is a Dutch-American visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most crucial tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm.
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