If you missed the last post, be sure to look at BusinessWeek’s The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies and how these organizations drive success. Their formula:

“They nurture cultures that value creative people in good times and bad.”

IBM used to have a cultural mantra posted in their offices: THINK. Apple used the tagline: THINK DIFFERENT. How about: THINK CREATIVE…because creativity drives success.

Ready to Innovate: Are Educators and Executives Aligned on the Creative Readiness of the U.S. Workforce? from The Conference Board offers some artful insights on the disconnect in business between creativity and innovation.

99% of educators and 97% of employers believe that arts are crucial for teaching creative thinking. But they don’t necessarily back beliefs with action. Says Jonathan Spector, Chief Executive Officer of The Conference Board:

"In particular, we believe it is time for employers to evaluate how well their corporate support of education and the arts, as well as their own employee-training programs, stack up against the strategic value they themselves place on innovation and its creative underpinning.”

If arts are primarily elective, then is innovation mostly optional? We don’t think so. Neither should business, however:

“…among those employers who cite creativity as a primary hiring criterion…80% provide the three activities/training options that they say best develop creativity — working in departments other than their own, managerial coaching, and mentoring — only on an ‘as needed’ basis.”

The summary statement says it all:

“...this new research shows that both businesses and schools recognize the critical role of creativity as a workforce skill, and both groups accept the role they have in fostering it. Both also recognize that arts-training is a key way to foster creativity. Yet despite this recognition, most schools do not include arts training as a mandatory part of the curriculum, and most businesses provide creativity-fostering training only to very few employees. With this growing recognition of the role a creative workforce has on the global competitiveness of American business, both business and education leaders need to examine what changes can be made to more widely foster these skills in our current — and especially our future — workers.”