Innovation is one of the hottest topics in the business world today. Every organization in every sector and industry seems to be searching for people who can help do things better or do things that haven't been done before. Business schools are being pushed to help foster this appetite for innovation. As one recruiter said to me recently, "We're looking for people who are not just smart but people who can bring a new angle to a problem or opportunity." Much of the talent war being fought in the corporate world involves competition for the creative.

The wellsprings of creative energy seem to flow most freely in situations that invite us to share ideas. It's always fun and interesting to watch children playing. Many children are great at improvising and testing a hunch; however, as the years pass, their confident spontaneity is channeled into more predictable and manageable behavior.

I have an artist friend who says he can estimate the age at which a person gave up on learning to draw. "At some point in the elementary grades," he says, "most people retreat from experimenting, from playing with shapes and shadows." But, this ability to explore a thought or manipulate materials with the hands and mind is core to the process of invention.

Business leaders and business educators sometimes contribute to this ongoing retreat because we focus, understandably, on the practical, down-to-earth work we call "business." But innovation is rooted in playfulness and experimentation. Shirley Brice Heath, a cultural anthropologist at Stanford, has studied adolescents' involvement in the arts—drama, dance, visual art, and media. Heath has found that those who have been connected to arts-based activities exhibit significantly greater ability to organize projects, evaluate their own work, and come up with solutions to ambiguous problems. Obviously, engagement in sports fosters teamwork, but Heath says, "The arts demand more personal determination and self evaluation."

Those abilities sound a lot like the skills recruiters are seeking in today's business school graduates. No wonder so many of the new champions of innovation in business are people with "hybrid" backgrounds: English literature and business, mathematics and art, or engineering and graphic design. It's not easy to predict what skills and interests we pursue will turn out to be practical or relevant. So dabble a bit, explore a little, and don't worry too much too soon about how the development of creative thinking will pay off. Sooner or later, everything we take into our imaginative diet contributes to the development of the whole.

Sincerely,



Michael P. Thompson
Associate Dean