Success doesn’t breed creativity

Executives or managers tasked with managing the creative folks in their R&D labs have to caution against one big problem: success. According to an article in the January issue of Management Science, R&D managers interested in increasing the creative output of their departments should be aware that successful inventors could become less creative over time. Inventors who have experienced success in their efforts to patent their inventions continue to generate new patents but over time these patents tend to be less adventurous. This finding implies that allocating more resources to the most prolific inventors may increase the productivity of their department, but it may diminish their creative output, according to a statement from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. (Management Science is the journal of INFORMS). So this is saying give less money to workers to promote more successful R&D? But don’t let ‘em get too successful. Hmmm.