The world is awash with great ideas, but while many would make the case that innovation and creativity should be repeatable activities, actually doing so is often harder than we think. Research from Olin Business School sheds light on why that is.

The researchers found that we often bestow first-time creators of novel ideas with some kind of award or recognition, which seems to reduce the likelihood of that person having subsequent successes.

“In our study, we found that people who develop novel ideas and receive rewards for them start to see themselves primarily as a ‘creative person,'” the researchers explain.

“This newfound identity, which is special and rare, is then in need of protection. Essentially, once a person is in the creative limelight, stepping out of it — by producing a novel idea that disappoints or pales in comparison to earlier work — is threatening and to be avoided. One way to do so is to stop producing altogether. You cannot compromise your identity and reputation when you do not produce anything new.”

Tricky second album

In music, the difficulty of reproducing the success achieved with a breakthrough album is so well known that the “tricky second album” is a widespread fear, but the researchers highlight just how common this is in other creative fields.

“Harper Lee is a perfect example of this phenomenon,” they explain. “Her first book, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ is one of the bestselling and most acclaimed American novels of all time. Yet she didn’t publish again until 55 years later. And her second book, ‘Go Set a Watchman,’ written in the mid-1950s, is considered to be a first draft of her legendary one hit wonder.”

The researchers examined the subsequent performance of 224 first-time authors of cookbooks in the UK. They chose this field because cookbooks are not only creative endeavors, but also often labors of love. The data showed that around half of first-time authors went on to produce a second book, with the likelihood of doing so even lower for those whose first book was a creative success.

This was followed up by a second experiment involving business school students, with each participant required to develop a new concept for a cookbook. Half were instructed to be as novel as possible, while the others were instructed to be traditional. As before, it emerged that when people produced a creative book straight away, they were less likely to then build upon that original success.

Recognizing creativity

“Participants experienced a greater threat to their creative identity when producers of award-winning, novel work were confronted with the possibility of having to continue on their creative journey by having to produce original work yet again,” the authors explain.

As a result, the researchers argue that managers need to rethink how creativity is recognized in the workplace so that employees aren’t discouraged from following up on any original successes. While we may think that awards will be motivational, this study suggests that they’re actually quite stressful.

“Awards are only bad for people producing novel stuff because they make the creative identity of such people salient, causing them to feel threatened by the prospect of compromising this identity with mediocre work,” the authors conclude.

The researchers provide the following tips for avoiding this pitfall and instead seeing rewards boost and support creativity:

1. Make sure that rewards and recognition are not only offered for the outcome of the creative process — a new product — but also for the process of developing the outcome. For example: Have we challenged key assumptions? Have we tested our prototype properly?
2. Reward both success and learning from failure. What becomes a success is difficult to predict and often entails a fair amount of luck. Thus, success and failure often lay close together. Learning from failure can be immensely beneficial and should be encouraged.
3. Do not glorify someone who had one creative success by offering an outsized reward. If you want to glorify people, celebrate those who can produce creative work repeatedly.