A popular view of business is that it is split into two halves. One half is the creative right side of the brain: product developers, marketers, researchers and others who dream big dreams and think...

A popular view of business is that it is split into two halves. One half is the creative right side of the brain: product developers, marketers, researchers and others who dream big dreams and think in the future tense. The second half is the rational left brain, made up of financial analysts, accountants and other number-crunchers who don’t look farther ahead than the next quarter’s spreadsheet. It is a nice little image, but it is wrong. Business innovation is a lot more about synthesis than just the singular act of invention. The greatest breakthroughs are made by those with the broadest perspectives and the deepest knowledge: they can see the potential in a new idea while also understanding the economics of production and distribution, the motivations of competitors, and the needs and

moods of consumers. And this analytical creativity is far more likely to be found among the suits than those who wear high-fashion trainers. The fact is that both types are needed. One great example of this is Samuel Insull, a starched English bean-counter who took care of all the business details that Thomas Edison, the inventor, couldn’t be bothered with. With a deft combination of discipline and insight into the market and the economics of electricity, he sowed the seeds of General Electric, now one of the world’s largest companies. Not every accountant is an Insull, of course, but there are plenty of individuals who pay attention to the detail required to turn inventions into commercial realities. If executives took a hard and open-minded look at the operating and financial sides of their business, they would probably find a good number of individuals with such skills. Unfortunately, few managers seem to make that effort. They buy into the popular but false distinction: innovation should be left to the creatives, and that is a shame. Think of how much more productive corporate innovation could become if those with a deep understanding of the numbers were brought more fully into the processes for generating and commercialising new ideas.