Books Quote by John C. Maxwell
““Jerry Hirshberg, in his book The Creative Priority: Putting Innovation to Work in Your Business, writes, No one in a corporation deliberately sets out to stifle creative thought. Yet, a traditional bureaucratic structure, with its need for predictability, linear logic, conformance to accepted norms, and the dictates of the most recent “long-range” vision statement, is a nearly perfect idea-killing machine. People in groups regress toward the security of the familiar and the well-regulated. Even creative people do it. It’s easier. It avoids the ambiguity, the fear of unpredictability, the threat of the unfamiliar, and the messiness of intuition and human emotion.””
About This Quote
Source Book: The Creative Priority: Putting Innovation to Work in Your Business by Jerry Hirshberg, 2005
Corporate structures that prioritize predictability and conformity suppress creativity, pushing people toward familiar, safe choices and away from uncertainty and intuition.
In simple terms: Bureaucracy stifles creativity by favoring safety over uncertainty.
Key Takeaway
Embrace uncertainty to foster innovation.
Themes
creativity
bureaucracy
risk
innovation
culture
Mood
reflective
critical
inquisitive
Type
advice
analysis
philosophical
When to use this quote
- product development
- team brainstorming
- leadership training
- change management
Key Concepts
systems thinking
psychology
organizational behavior
Questions to Reflect On
- How can you redesign processes to reward ambiguity?
- What safeguards can protect intuition in decision‑making?
A Different Perspective
Even in creative individuals, fear of the unknown can override innovative impulses.
