Adding Flexibility

           Finally, the large organization has alternatives to the alleged ''conservatizing'' conssequences of bigness. The realatively rigid organization can build into its own processes certain flexibilities that would provide fructifying opportubities for the creative but irresponsible individual. Some of these alternatives were discussed earlier.
            Some of them, however, have created their own organizational problems, some of them not terribly reassuring. The fact is that the problems and needs of companies differ. To this extent they have to find their own special ways of dealing with the issues discussed in this chapter. The important point is to be conscious of the possible need and value of finding ways to make creativity yield more innovation.
             Some companies have greater need for such measures than other. As pointed out earlier, the need hinges in part on the nature of the industry. Certainly it is easier to convert creativity into innovation in the advertising business than it is in an operating company, with its elaborate production pprocessses, long channels of distribution, and complex administrative setup.
              For those critics of, and advisers to, industry who repeatedly call for more creativity in business, it is well to try first to understand the profound distinction between creativity and innovation, and then perhaps to spend a little more time calling on creative individuals to take added resposibility for implementation. The fructifying potentials of creativity vary enormously with the particular industry, with the climate in the organization, with the organizational level of the idea man, and with the kinds of day-in, day-out problems, pressures, and responsibilities of the man to whom he addresses his ideas. Without clearly appreciating these facts, those who declare that a company will somehow grow and prosper merely by having more creative people make a fetish of their own illusions.