How to stop corporate logic killing creativity
Hierarchies hate innovation
From a business perspective, I feel like a schizophrenic. On the one hand, my career has meandered through IBM, ICI and Vodafone. In large organisations data rules the day. Progress is measured in forecasts, KPIs and polished plans. On the other hand, I founded a startup and will make a dent in the universe. In this environment the world looks quite different. Breakthroughs don’t materialise from ever more analysis. Rather, they germinate from acquiring specific knowledge and addressing the needs of niche markets. It’s a creative tension I’m attempting to navigate: the comfort of structure versus the freedom (and chaos) of building something new.
Roger L Martin gave a talk at NudgeStock where he expertly articulated the case for creatives, including strategists, to stand their ground in the face of conventional corporate wisdom.
The false god of data
Numbers give the illusion of certainty but often without the promised validity. - Nathan S. Collier
Most “strategic thinking” isn’t strategic at all. It’s planning in a suit. Safe little lists: more marketing spend, more headcount, a bigger office. We love them because they let us tinker with what we already control. But real strategy? That’s about what we don’t control. Customers and competitors. The messy, unpredictable stuff. Strategy (the real, creative kind) is about making bold choices that tip the scales in our favour. We won’t find that magic in a spreadsheet.
We’re told (by MBAs and consultants who swoon over R-squared values) that good decisions come from data. Crunch the numbers. Find the regression line. Then act. But here’s the problem: all data comes from the past. If the future mirrors the past, great. Crunch away. But if the future’s even slightly different (and it usually is) our models aren’t just unhelpful; they’re misleading.
Aristotle saw this 2,500 years ago. He split the world in two:
Things that cannot be otherwise (like gravity).
And things that can.
Business lives firmly in the second camp. Yet we cling to scientific methods built for unchanging laws of nature. We demand data about a future that doesn’t exist. Then we wonder why bold ideas get strangled in meetings.
Why creatives lose
In God we trust. All others must bring data. - W. Edwards Deming
If you’ve ever tried to get a new idea approved, you’ve probably heard this: “Interesting, but can you show me the data?” Like a dutiful employee, you run off to find supporting numbers. But here’s the trap. Any data you dig up is about the current state of the world. And your idea is about changing it. So the data says your idea won’t work, because it’s measuring sameness. You’ve been sent on an impossible errand. And worse, you’ve agreed to play defence on their field. You will always lose if you try to justify creativity using their rules.
Going on the offensive
You can’t look in the rearview mirror and drive into the future. - Rory Sutherland
When the spreadsheet crowd says, “Show me the data” flip the script: “Sure. But first, where’s your data that proves doing nothing will keep working?” Ask them: “Are you assuming the future is identical to the past? Because if not, your forecasts aren’t worth much.” Push. Prod. Expose the absurdity of using yesterday’s numbers to predict tomorrow’s possibilities. This isn’t about being obnoxious (though a little mischief helps). It’s about refusing to defend creativity in a court that was built to convict it.
Nokia once dominated mobile phones but ignored an anthropologist’s warning that early smartphones were becoming people’s first computers in China. Consultants dismissed her insight as “just one data point” among thousands. Four years later, the iPhone launched, and Nokia’s future vanished. The lesson was that data shows where the world has been, not where it’s going.
So where do new ideas come from? If not from data, then what? Real creativity often springs from three places:
Trade-offs: When the choice between A and B feels awful, imagine C.
Analogies: The “Uber for X” or “Netflix for Y” approach.
Anomalies: Weird outliers in the data that most ignore.
Malcolm Gladwell calls this “cool hunting”; looking at the fringes of culture for what will become mainstream in 10 years. It’s messy. It’s anecdotal. It’s the opposite of statistical rigour. And yet, that’s where revolutions like the smartphone came from.
Rhetoric, not regression
Rhetoric is the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. - Aristotle
Aristotle didn’t just warn us off misusing science. He suggested an alternative: rhetoric. In uncertain domains, the right move is not to analyse more but to imagine possibilities and argue for the one that makes the most sense. In other words: have a point of view. Make a case for it. And stop apologising for the fact that your argument isn’t backed up by data from a future that doesn’t exist yet.
Don’t be a good soldier
Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence. - Osho
Creativity isn’t an act of compliance; it’s an act of rebellion. So the next time someone asks you to forecast the revenue impact of a new idea, smile sweetly and say, “Forecasting is a fantasy. And if you insist on clinging to it, let’s at least admit it’s a game. So here’s my made-up number: £100 million. Happy?” Because in a world where things can be other than they are, defending creativity with data is like trying to build a rocket by staring at bird migration charts. It’s time we stopped asking permission to invent the future and started demanding better arguments from those trying to preserve the past.
Other resources
Five Essential Questions to Craft a Winning Strategy interview with Roger L Martin
Three Ways to Profit from being Less Logical post by Phil Martin
Five Lateral Thinking Techniques post by Phil Martin
Roger L Martin sums things up: “In strategy, what counts is what would have to be true, not what is true. To put it in scientific terms, developing a winning strategy involves the creation and testing of novel cause effect hypotheses and the identification of what must be different about the world for those hypotheses to work.”
Have fun.
Phil…
