Every decision–every thought–that we make brands us as innovative or conventional. Take, for example, a story of two frogs. Two frogs jumped into an urn filled with fresh cream and could not find a way to jump back out. One of them finds a small crevice on which they can hang on to. The other is left without the handhold, and is not sure which way to go. The frog mulls over its options and decides to swim, realizing that if it could churn the cream, the cream would solidify and it would be able to jump out. After the frog spent a considerable amount of time churning the cream, a chunk of butter formed. In a flash, the frog waiting on the side jumped on the patch of butter and jumped out of the urn. The patch of butter broke as the frog leaped, and the remaining frog had to start all over.
Consider this story a metaphor for two people, one innovative and the other conventional. Which frog would you choose as the innovative one? And as the conventional one? I conducted a small scale survey (using people from different aspects of life) and the result was unanimous. I presented the story in two parts. After reading the un-italicized part, they all immediately identified the innovative frog as the one churning the cream. After reading the second part, there was some hesitation but none of the answers changed. Everyone claimed the frog that was churning is the innovative one and the one hanging on is the conventional one. Just as I predicted, the respondents who faltered after reading the second part of the story were the ones who are more creatively-inclined. That is because their answer developed through a sub-conscious pre-disposition.
The answer that this question generated was an idealistic answer. Most people, myself included, romanticize creativity. We draw up elaborate veils to mask the true identity of creativity. The truth is that creativity is just another word for manipulation. In business, marketing teams strategize how best to manipulate their audience. Writers manipulate words to form different connotations, sometimes multiple connotations, of an idea. Artists manipulate colors and light to achieve original descriptions of similar ideologies. Why is such a veil cast over something so aggressive?
The vast majority of the world strives to “think outside of the box.” This is simply an internal Darwinistic mechanism. Or should I breach the matter of Capitalism? It is our greed to survive, but to survive better than anyone else, which allows us to mask the hostile nature of creativity. CEO’s, movie stars, and Nobel Prize recipients all have one thing in common: their ability to manipulate their surroundings for their benefit. So why have we let this slide for so long? The reason lies within Utilitarianism; “the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its usefulness in maximizing utility and minimizing negative utility.” (Wikipedia definition) In other words, creativity is simply better for society as a whole, and for the happiness of the individual.
The important thing to take from this is the fact that it is the conventional people who build our society. They are absolutely necessary, otherwise society would collapse. Conventional people are not completely void of ideas, but they are limited to their scientific/tangible proof. Innovative people live for the unknown. But it is because of the conventional people that the innovative people have a footing to take off into the unknown. Without the conventional people, there would be no butter and we would all be barely hanging on. So is the innovative frog the one who churns the cream, or the one who jumps out with the help of its urn-mate?
