The Mindjet Blog

The classical dilemma between the Mind and the Manager (and how to solve it!)

Gutenberg took the wine press and the die punch and produced a printing press. Apple brought together online music and its powerful brand to create the iPod. And Mike Jetter, CTO and co-founder of Mindjet, took pen and ink and the concept of mindmapping and translated it into a software application. There are many aspects to creativity, but one definition would certainly include the ability to take existing objects and combine them in different ways for new purposes: “Being creative is seeing the same thing as everybody else but thinking of something different.” Creative thinking itself can be divided into divergent and convergent reasoning. Divergent thinking is the intellectual ability to think of many original, diverse, and elaborate ideas. Convergent thinking is the intellectual ability to logically evaluate, critique, and choose the best idea from a selection of ideas.

In business, creativity may account as an indispensable driver of innovation, on the other hand though it also finds itself in a constant battle with formalized and managerial routines that boost and ensure efficiency and maximum productivity. Creativity is often thought of in terms of artistic expression or hobbies, while productivity is most commonly associated with work and value creation. Those who identify primarily with the word creativity tend to abhor structure and look upon work as a limiting factor to their self-expression. Conversely, those more comfortable with the term productivity tend to regard it as an efficient and valuable endeavor and are suspicious of "creative types.” It is the classical dilemma between the (creative) mind and the (productive) manager. It is the battle between the creator who challenges the status quo by placing things in a new, often surprising context, and the manager who is interested mainly in implementation, adhering to pre-defined processes and seeking to formalize business thinking whenever possible. Is that an artificial dichotomy? How much creativity is good for productivity? How much productivity should one require from creative types? 

The truth is that both groups are involved in the same activity. Creativity that doesn’t lead to any results is wasted brainpower; on the other hand, productivity that lacks creative impetus is nothing but empty routine. This is true for business and the arts alike. A “creative” person should be productive sometimes, taking on a project with a definite end and finishing it to pre-defined characteristics. And a "productive" person should embrace the free-play, multiple plateau model of creation, without a definite end in mind. Today’s knowledge worker is tasked to relate disparate pieces of information, often with the directive to come up with a new solution for an existing problem. And with the size of responsibilities that need for creative solutions increases. To use an over-consumed metaphor: The manager thinks inside the box whereas the creative mind thinks outside the box. In the best possible scenario, both forces team up to alter the box. That’s called innovation. Innovation is ‘creativity implemented.’ It is, as Arnold Wasserman of The Idea Factory phrases it, “taking creative ideas and bringing them into the world so that they change lives, and so they also change the organizations that bring them into the world.”

So, what does all that have to do with Mindjet and MindManager? Well, MindManager increases productivity as we know from many customers and case studies. Sure. But other software does that, too. What really distinguishes MindManager from all the other productivity software out there is that it combines creativity and productivity in the very same mind, or, literally, on the very same map. MindManager bridges the gap between idea and implementation, turns thoughts into relationships, and puts plans into action. In this new business thinking, creative and managerial mind form “a whole new mind” (as Dan Pink coins it) – with the result of more creativity spent more productively, allowing more ideas to lead to real innovation.

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