Does creativity add to the bottom line?

Why do students embark on an MBA? I presume to become "masters of business administration" for most, to brag to friends and colleagues for others. After all, how do you know someone has an MBA? They tell you....

Anyhow, something that I find the MBA teaching me, is how to quell my fear of creativity, among many other learnings of course.

The reason I embarked on an MBA (apart from self improvement) is to become a better leader/motivator, business manager, strategist and more recently, a better creategist (sp). I have absolutely no doubt that by improving on all the aforementioned my business will reap those rewards.

However, in order to harness new learned talents and philosophies, CREATIVITY will be needed in order to produce a cocktail of success. Why creativity? Because while we may all have a myriad of talents and capabilities, the manner in which we mix and match and leverage those talents and abilities is what determines our success or failure. It is what determines more money on the bottom line of my business. IT is what makes me.............Creative! And creative is what makes me ............. successful!

Starting my business and being faced with challenge after challenge, I find comfort in the fact that, when comparing myself to Giants such as Tiger Wessels from UTI, Raymond Ackerman from Pick n Pay, Dr Bill Venter from Altron and even Richard Branson from Virgin, each one of these entrepreneurs faced many crossroads (in building their empires) where creativity pulled them through. I have had the pleasure of chatting to three of the above (Branson excluded) where they have stepped off the pedestal I put them on to advise that without a creative edge, they would not have managed to build the empires they have. To me - creativity makes them almost human....... To me, creativity makes them exceptional.

In closing, I do believe, as I am sure many reading this will; that creativity certainly adds to the bottom line of any business. But, is it measurable?