Lorenzo: I often get asked to talk about creativity and how to successfully manage creative talent and drive, innovation, and organizations. I know it’s a very popular topic, but there’s no formula or easy answers.

I usually start out talking about creativity, but it really ends up talking about conviction.

Creativity has become a buzzword, I think, to describe the desired trait among employees. It’s why we believe that having creative thinkers on staff would boost the team’s overall ability to innovate. That’s true. And it can lead to—you know, creativity leads to a surplus of all these great ideas.

But the reality is, how do you get those ideas into the marketplace? That’s actually the hard part.

When it comes to those ideas and getting them into the marketplace, creativity really isn’t enough. It’s the force behind the initial spark. But conviction really is the crucial element when it comes to delivering real innovation.

Now conviction is the commitment to make an idea into reality. Now at Frog our ethos is “always make it real.” We talk about that. It’s written on the walls everywhere.

So what we do is openly challenge each other’s ideas and concepts. We want to touch the next idea. We want to manifest it into simple painstaking trial and error. It’s a really arduous journey and it’s filled with naysayers.  I hear more about how you can’t get things done than you can. Everyone might fall in love with the idea but gratefully say you can’t get it done.

That’s why I believe this conviction is the thing that’s going to get you to get those ideas into reality. There is no magic sauce. The elves don’t come out at night. It happens in very small incremental steps. And what you get are these, what I call conviction-driven thinkers and doers.

They are passionate about the concepts they have, and that—really those people are anywhere from the C-suites to interns. They all have the same quality and characteristics. They can explain why they want to develop something, how they believe in something, and they are steadfast at getting it done.

So it’s the underlying passion to share specific visions and see it through to fruition. Conviction-driven thinkers and doers don’t just want to sit around and generate ideas. They are not the ones to sit and bask in the initial growth. They are usually the first one in and the last one out.

So, back to how do you nurture this in your organization, and how do you capitalize on it in the marketplace?

What we do at frog is we value delivery. And so we force teams to collaborate, to really challenge each other. And if you put the value on actually making it and getting it finished, what you have is you have a different set of behaviors that happen. As the ability to make something gets redefined over time, you’re teaching your team the value of collaboration and grading them on delivery as opposed to just the ideas.

By this, you’re inspiring your teams, and you’re convincing, really, those conviction-driven thinkers and doers to keep going, which is exactly what you want in your organization. Thank you.