Have you ever been a part of a new product team with a single mission fueled by what seems like two diametrically opposed roadmaps — that of the strategic high road and that of the creative winding road?  I’ve got to believe that with the popular cross-functional team approach most companies embrace today, you’ve probably encountered barriers that triggered tension points along the way. It’s no wonder then that new product timelines get pulled and stretched, and potentially remarkable ideas get watered down to “doable.” 

Often, this tension begins with a simple difference in perspective and approach. The creative- minded types, being very tangentially divergent, consider options A-Z, but often don’t focus on the center issue.  The strategic thinkers, on the other hand, zero in on one tightly-defined area and may completely miss the broader picture and new opportunities. Inevitably, ideas are created and considered independently, thus creating a roadmap that begins to stray in multiple directions.  The mission for the “big” idea starts to feign impossible.

So, what are these tensions that cause the roadmap to split?  In my opinion, based on my experience running ideation sessions for dozens of major food and beverage companies, tensions arise from different inherent mindsets, leading to frustrated team members who are upset with the results. Here are a few I’ve encountered along the way.

The strategy minded can perceive their creative counterparts as being frou-frou, emotional, unstructured savants who have to “play” to be able to perform. Alternately, the creative minded may view their strategic counterparts as high-level, functional, guideline enforcers who can only communicate through a 70-slide deck — death by PowerPoint. 

These illustrations might be exaggerated but there is no doubt that creative-strategic tensions can cause real trouble in the development process. It’s no wonder with all of this misinterpretation and miscommunication that a team becomes misguided and rarely discovers what the company needs: True innovation to spark top-line growth and a sustainable pipeline of new products. 

The roadmap to achieving the mission must, therefore, be a joint effort between the creatives and the strategists. The team leader has to effectively merge the two mindsets, with all of their intricacies and idiosyncrasies, throughout the entire new product process. This is particularly important during collaborative meetings and brainstorming sessions. This effective merging of strategic and creative mindsets is what I like to call disciplined creativity. 

Disciplined creativity balances the strategic linkage with a seemingly random element of creative imagination — it’s how you bring them together to create the magic. It’s more than just having the right people on the team — it’s about having the right perspective. Recognize that no good idea will last without a sound strategy and that the best strategy will never spark interest without a creative execution. Simple, right?  It sounds great in theory, but as I wade through the “shelves of sameness” at the local grocer or dredge through the “aisles of underwhelming” at the mass merchandiser, I wonder where the real innovation went.

The beauty of disciplined creativity is that it’s an easy theory to master. Let the strategy-minded create the focus, and the creative-minded focus on bringing the strategy alive. It takes both to make magic in the marketplace, both working in tandem to elevate your brand.  So the next time you’re feeling off-course with your project team, don’t just sit there. Put all of your heads and skills together to serve up your top-notch strategy with style, focus and of course, a creative flourish.

Laura Schmidt is the senior vice president of creative strategy for Landis Strategy & Innovation. She has helped guide global marquee brand organizations in their successful innovation and new product development initiatives for the past 15 years. To learn more about the tension of disciplined creativity, go to here.