I wrote a post earlier this summer about innovation and creativity, pointing out that many companies say they want it, but what they really want are the outputs.  They aren’t necessarily willing to embrace the messiness that comes with it.  Today in the New York Times there was a great opinion piece about creativity and how we systematically eradicate it from the workplace and from the skills of our workers while saying we ‘really’ want it.  Managing innovation really means managing the space around it – providing breathing room for life to happen. Are you willing to provide that in your company?

My favorite quote from the article:

“Creativity requires giving self-directed original thinkers space for the missteps and dead ends that are often prerequisites for groundbreaking work”.

Check out the full opinion piece here.