DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION PROJECT
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PAPER:
The Purpose:
• The purpose of the Disruptive Innovation Project is for students to further understand theories of innovation, reflect on how innovations are disrupting their field of study/careers, and analyse important socioeconomic and technological trends impacting the world, and their lives.
The Task:
Write a report that:
· is a minimum 5 pages double spaced (not including reference section, title page)
· references a minimum of 2 academic sources and 2 news articles/op-eds, etc
· is formatted according to APA standards (12 pt font, proper citations, etc., though no abstract required)
The Details:
• Submit to appropriate drop-box on SLATE before class in Week 8 before the start of class in x or format (or late deductions will be incurred)
• the window for receiving submissions (in the drop-box) will remain open for one week following the submission deadline- students will not be able to make submissions once the window closes
•a late penalty of 10% per business day is in effect
The Content:
Now that you know what innovation is, identify and reflect upon one innovation that has or will radically alter the way things are done within your field (preferably a disruptive innovation, though any advancement or innovation trend can be used). These could be innovations specific to your field (e.g., particular technologies that are domain specific, like medical imaging equipment) or are more general innovations that impact multiple fields but specifically impact yours in a unique way (e.g., how the internet impacted education).
1. Identify and describe the details of your field and the innovation you chose.
2. Describe how the innovation has impacted or is forecasted to impact your field.
3. Reflect on the positive and negative impacts of this disruption to your field. For example, how does this impact the day-to-day workings of those in your industry, for better or for worse? How does this change the economic viability of particular skill sets that people have acquired? What are the implications for training and education? What do you need to do to adapt to this innovation?
Evaluation:
Projects will be graded according to the following criteria:
SUMMARY, ANALYSIS, AND INSIGHT: /15
Was the cited work summarized accurately?
Did the project focus on an appropriate innovation?
Was the impact of that innovation analyzed meaningfully in the context of the chosen field?
Did the essay effectively make arguments grounded in evidence?
Were the arguments and connections logical and creative?
COMPLETENESS: /5
Was the essay a minimum of 5 pages?
Were there a minimum of 2 references to academic sources and 2 references to news articles/op-eds, etc.?
WRITING/FORMATTING: /5
Was the entry written in a way that adhered to academic writing standards (e.g., proper grammar, spelling, etc.)?
Was the document formatted according to APA standards?
Were citations/references appropriately formatted according to APA standards?
________________________________
TOTAL: /25
Assignment is to be submitted to Dropbox in x or format before the start of class in Week 8
BEST OF HBR
1 9 6 3
Are great ideas
destroying your
company?
\
Creativity Is
Not Enough
by Theodore Levitt
Ted Levitt, a former editor of HBR and one ofthe most incisive commentators
on innovation to have appeared in our pages, takes dead aim at the assumption
that creativity is superior to conformity. He argues that creativity as it’s com-
monly defined-the ability to come up with brilliantly novel ideas-can actually
be destructive to businesses. By failing to take into account practical matters
of implementation, big thinkers can inspire organizational cultures dedicated
to abstract chatter rather than purposeful action. In such cultures, innovation
never happens-because people are always talking about it but never doing it.
Often, the worst thing a company can do, in Levitt’s view, is put innovation
into the hands of “creative type5”-those compulsive idea generators
whose distaste for the mundane realities of organizational life renders
them incapable of executing any real project. Organizations, by their very
nature, are designed to promote order and routine; they are inhospitable
environments for innovation. Those who don’t understand organizational
realities are doomed to see their ideas go unrealized. Only the organizational
insider-the apparent conformist-has the practical intelligence to overcome
bureaucratic impediments and bring a good idea to a fruitful conclusion.
“CREATIVITY” is not the miraculous road
to business growth and affluence that is
so abundantly claimed these days. And
for the line manager, particularly, it may
be more ofa millstone than a milestone.
Those who extol the liberating virtues of
corporate creativity over the somnam-
bulistic vices of corporate conformity
may actually be giving advice that in
the end will reduce the creative anima-
tion of business. This is because they
tend to confuse the getting of ideas with
their implementation-that is, confuse
creativity in the abstract with practical
innovation; not understand the operat-
ing executive’s day-to-day problems; and
underestimate the intricate complexity
of business organizations.
The trouble with much ofthe advice
business is getting today about the need
to be more vigorously creative is, essen-
tially, that its advocates have generally
failed to distinguish between the rela-
tively easy process of being creative in
the abstract and the infinitely more
difficult process of being innovationist
in the concrete. Indeed, they misdefine
“creativity” itself. Too often, for them,
THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE AUGUST 2002 137
BEST OF HBR
“creativity” means having great, origi-
nal ideas. Their emphasis is almost all on
the thoughts themselves. Moreover, the
ideas are often judged more by their
novelty than by their potential useful-
ness, either to consumers or to the com-
pany. In this article, 1 shall show that in
most cases, having a new idea can be
“creative” in the abstract but destruc-
tive in actual operation, and that often
instead of helping a company, it will
even hinder it.
Suppose you know two artists. One
tells you an idea for a great painting,
but he does not paint it. The other has
the same idea and paints it. You could
easily say the second man is a great cre-
ative artist. But could you say the same
thing of the first man? Obviously not.
He is a talker, not a painter.
That is precisely the problem with so
much of today’s pithy praise of creativ-
ity in business-with the unending fiow
of speeches, books, articles, and “cre-
ativity workshops” whose purpose is to
produce more imaginative and creative
managers and companies. My observa-
tions of these activities over a number
of years lead me firmly to this conclu-
sion. They mistake an idea for a great
painting with the great painting itself.
They mistake brilliant talk for construc-
tive action.
But, as anybody who knows anything
about any organization knows only too
well, it is hard enough to get things
done at all, let alone to introduce a new
way of doing things, no matter how
good it may seem. A powerful new idea
can kick around unused in a company
for years, not because its merits are not
recognized but because nobody has as-
sumed the responsibility for convert-
ing it from words into action. Vtfhat is
often lacking is not creativity in the
Theodore Levitt, a longtime professor
of marketing at Harvard Business School,
is now professor emeritus. He is the author
of numerous HBR articles. His most re-
cent books are Thinking About Manage-
ment (1990) and The Marketing Imagi-
nation (1986), both from Free Press.
idea-creating sense but innovation in
the action-producing sense, i.e., putting
ideas to work.
Ideas Are Not Enough
Why don’t we get more innovation?
One ofthe most repetitious and, I am
convinced, most erroneous answers we
get to this question is that businessmen
are not adequately creative and that
they are enslaved by the incubus of con-
formity. It is alleged that everything in
American business would be just dandy
if industry were simply more creative
and if it would hire more creative peo-
ple and give them the chance to show
their fructifying stuff.
But anybody who carefully looks
around in any modem business organi-
zation and speaks freely and candidly
with the people in it will, 1 believe,
discover something very interesting:
namely, there is really very little short-
age of creativity and of creative people
in American business. The major prob-
lem is that so-called creative people
often (though certainly not always) pass
off on others the responsibility for get-
ting down to brass tacks. They have
plenty of ideas but little businesslike
follow-through. They do not make the
right kind of effort to help their ideas
get a hearing and a try.
All in all, ideation is relatively abun-
dant. It is its implementation that is
more scarce.
Many people who are full of ideas
simply do not understand how an or-
ganization must operate in order to get
things done, especially dramatically
new things. AU too often, there is the
peculiar underlying assumption that
creativity automatically leads to actual
innovation. In the crippled logic of this
line of thinking, ideation (or creativity,
if you emphasize the idea-producing
aspect of that term) and innovation are
treated as synonyms. This kind of think-
ing is a particular disease of advocates
of “brainstorming,” who often treat
their approach as some sort of ultimate
business liberator.’ Ideation and inno-
vation are not synonyms. The former
deals with the generation of ideas; the
latter, with their implementation. It is
the absence of a constant awareness of
this distinction that is responsible for
some ofthe corporate standpattism we
see today. (Lest there be any confusion,
it is not essential that innovation be suc-
cessfully implemented to qualify as in-
novation. The object ofthe innovation is
success, but to require in advance that
there be no doubt of its success would
disable its chance of ever getting tried.)
The fact that you can put a dozen in-
experienced people into a room and
conduct a brainstorming session that
produces exciting new ideas shows how
little relative importance ideas them-
selves actually have. Almost anybody
with the intelligence of the average
businessman can produce them, given
a halfway decent environment and stim-
ulus. The scarce people are those who
have the know-how, energy, daring, and
staying power to implement ideas.
Whatever the goals of a business may
be, it must make money. To do that, it
must get things done. But having ideas
is seldom equivalent to getting things
done in the business or organizational
sense. Ideas do not implement them-
selves – neither in business nor in art,
science, philosophy, politics, love, war.
People implement ideas.
A Form of Irresponsibility
Since business is a uniquely “get things
done” institution, creativity without
action-oriented follow-through is a
uniquely barren form of individual
behavior. Actually, in a sense, it is even
irresponsible. This is because: (1) The
creative man who tosses out ideas and
138 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
Creativity ts Not Enough
does nothing to help them get imple-
mented is shirking any responsibility
for one of the prime requisites of the
business, namely, action; and (2) by
avoiding follow-through, he is behaving
in an organizationally intolerable-or,
at best, sloppy-fashion.
The trouble with much creativity
today, in my observation, is that many
of the people with the ideas have the
peculiar notion that their jobs are fin-
ished once the ideas have been sug-
gested. They believe that it is up to
somebody else to work out the dirty
details and then implement the pro-
posals. Typically, the more creative the
man, the less responsibility he takes for
action. The reason is that the genera-
tion of ideas and concepts is often his
sole talent, his stock-in-trade. He seldom
has the energy or staying power, or in-
deed the interest, to work with the
grubby details that require attention be-
fore his ideas can be implemented.
Anybody can verify this for himself.
You need only to look around in your
own company and pick out the two or
three most original idea men in the
vicinity. How many of their ideas can
you say they have ever vigorously and
systematically followed through with
detailed plans and proposals for their
implementation-even with only some
modest, ballpark suggestions of the
risks, the costs, the manpower requi-
sites, the time budgets, and the possible
payout?
The usual situation is that idea men
constantly pepper everybody in the or-
ganization with proposals and memo-
randa that are just brief enough to get
attention, to intrigue, and to sustain in-
terest-but too short to include any re-
sponsible suggestions regarding how
the whole thing is to be implemented
and what’s at stake. In some instances it
must actually be inferred that they use
novel ideas for their disruptive or their
self-promotional value. To be more
specific:
One student of management succes-
sion questions whether ideas are al-
ways put forth seriously. He suggests
that often they may simply be a tacti-
cal device to attract attention in order
to come first to mind when promo-
tions are made. Hence, ideas are a
form of “public relations” within the
organization.^
it should be pointed out, however,
that something favorable can be said
about the relationship of irresponsibil-
ity to ideation. The generally effective
executive often exhibits what might be
called controlled momentary irrespon-
sibility. He recognizes that this attitude
is virtually necessary for the free play of
imagination. But what distinguishes
him is his ability to alternate appropri-
ately between attitudes of irresponsibil-
ity and responsibility. He doesn’t hold to
the former for long – only long enough
to make himself more productive.
Psychology of the
“Creative Type”
The fact that a consistently highly cre-
ative person is generally irresponsible
in the way I have used the term is in
part predictable from what is known
about the freewheeling fantasies of very
young children:
They are extremely creative, as any
kindergarten teacher will testify. They
have a naive curiosity which stumps
parents with questions like: “Why can
you see through glass?” “Why is there
a hole in a doughnut?” “Why is the
grass green?” It is this kind of ques-
tioning attitude that produces in
them so much creative freshness. Yet
the unique posture of their lives is
their almost total irresponsibility
from blame, work, and the other
routine necessities of organized soci-
ety. Even the law absolves them from
responsibility for their actions. But
all sources testify to childrens’ cre-
ativity, even Biblical mythology with
its assertion about wisdom issuing
from “the mouths of babes.” More
THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE AUGUST 2002 139
BEST OF HBR
respectable scientific sources have
paralleled the integrative mechanism
of adult creativity with the childhood
thought process that “manifests itself
during the preschool period – pos-
sibly as early as the appearance of
three-word sentences…”^
Clinical psychologists have also illus-
trated what I call the irresponsibility of
creative individuals in Rorschach and
stroboscopic tests. For example:
One analyst says,”Those who took to
the Rorschach like ducks to water, who
fantasied and projected fi:eely, even too
freely in some cases, or who could per-
mit themselves to tamper with the form
of the blot as given, gave us our broad-
est ranges of movement””‘ In short, they
were the least “form-bound,” the least
inhibited by the facts of their experi-
ence, and hence let their minds explore
new, untried, and novel alternatives to
existing ways of doing things.
The significance of this finding for the
analysis of organizations is pointed up
by the observation of another psychol-
ogist that “the theoreticians on the
other hand do not mind living danger-
ously.”̂ The reason is obvious. A theo-
retician is not immediately responsible
for action. He is perfectly content to live
dangerously because he does so only on
the conceptual level, where he cannot
get hurt. To assume any responsibility
for implementation is to risk dangerous
actions, and that can be painfully un-
comfortable. The safe solution is to steer
clear of implementation and ail the
dirty work it implies.
The Advice Business
It is to be expected, therefore, that
today’s most ardent advocates of cre-
ativity in business tend to be profes-
sional writers, consultants, professors,
and often advertising agency executives.
Not surprisingly, few of these people
have any continuing day-to-day respon-
sibility for the difficult task of imple-
menting powerful new business ideas
of a complex nature in the ordinary
type of business organization. Few of
them have ever had any responsibility
for doing work in the conventional kind
of complex operating organization.
They are not really practicing business-
men in the usual sense. They are literary
businessmen. They are the doctors who
say,”Do as I say, not as I do,”reminiscent
ofthe classic injunction ofthe boxer’s
manager, “Get in there and fight. They
can’t hurt us.”
The fact that these people are also so
often outspoken about the alleged viru-
lence of conformity in modern business
is not surprising. They can talk this way
because they have seldom
had the nerve to expose
themselves for any substan-
tial length of time to the
rigorous discipline of an
organization whose prin-
cipal task is not talk but ac-
tion, not ideas but work.
Impressive sermons are
delivered gravely proclaim-
ing the virtues of creativity and the vices
of conformity. But so often the authors
of these sermons, too, are “outsiders” to
the central sector ofthe business com-
munity. Thus, the best-known asserters
that American industry is some sort of
vast quagmire of quivering confor-
mity – the men who have tumed the
claim into a tiresome cliche-are peo-
ple like William H. Whyte, jr., author
of The Organization Man,” who is a pro-
fessional writer; Sloan Wilson, author
of The Man in the Cray Flannel Suit,’
who was a college English professor
when he wrote the book; and C. North-
cote Parkinson (more on him later), also
a professor.
Actually, it is not totally fair to con-
demn this gratuitous crusade of consul-
tants, writers, professors, and the like.
American business appears generally
to benefit from their existence. Harm is
done, however, when the executive fails
to consider that the very role of these
men absolves them from managerial
responsibility. It is hard to accept un-
critically the doleful prophesy that so
many U.S. companies are hypnotically
following each other in a deadly con-
formist march into economic oblivion.
It is hard to accept the tantalizing sug-
gestion that their salvation lies so easily
in creativity and that from this will au-
tomatically flow profit-building innova-
tion. Perhaps the source of these sug-
gestions should be kept in mind.
The Chronic Complainers
As I have already said, ideation is not a
synonym for innovation, conformity is
not its simple antonym, and innovation
is not the automatic consequence of
“creative thinking.” Indeed, what some
people call conformity in business is less
related to the lack of abstract creativity
than to the lack of responsible action,
whether it be the implementation of
new or old ideas.
The proof of this is that in most busi-
ness organizations, the most continually
creative men in the echelons below the
executive level-men who are actively
discontent with the here and now and
140 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
Creativity Is Not Enough
are full of suggestions about what to
do about i t – a r e also generally known
as corporate malcontents. They tend to
be complaining constantly about the
standpat senility ofthe management,
about its refusal to see the obvious facts
of its own massive inertia. They com-
plain about management refusing to
do the things that have been suggested
to it for years. They often complain that
management does not even want cre-
ative ideas, that ideas rock the boat
(which they do), and that management
is interested more in having a smoothly
running (or is it smoothly ruining?)
organization than in a rapidly forward-
vaulting business.
In short, they talk about the company
being a festering sore of deadly confor-
mity, full of decaying vegetables who
systematically oppose new ideas with
the old ideologies. And then, of course,
they frequently quote their patron saint,
William H. Whyte, Jr., with all his mis-
informed moralizing and his conjectural
evidence about what goes on inside an
operating organization. (Whyte’s fanci-
ful notions of such operations have re-
cently been demolished by the careful
studies ofthe veteran student of social
organization W. Lloyd Warner in his
The Corporation in the Emergent Ameri-
can Society.’^)
Why Doors Are Closed
The reason the creative malcontent
speaks this way is that so often the peo-
ple to whom he addresses his flow of
ideas do, indeed, after a while, ignore
him and tell him to go away. They shut
their doors to his endless entreaties;
they refuse to hear his ideas any longer.
Why? There is a plausible explanation.
The reason the executive so often re-
jects new ideas is that he is a busy man
whose chief day-in, day-out task is to
handle an ongoing stream of problems.
He receives an unending flow of ques-
tions on which decisions must be made.
Constantly he is forced to deal with
problems to which solutions are more
or less urgent and the answers to which
are far from clear-cut. It may seem
splendid to a subordinate to supply his
boss with a lot of brilliant new ideas
to help him in his job. But advocates of
creativity must once and for all under-
stand the pressing facts of the execu-
tive’s life: Every time an idea is submit-
ted to him, it creates more problems for
him – and he already has enough.
My colleague. Professor Raymond A.
Bauer, has pointed out an instructive
example from another field of activity.
He notes that many congressmen and
senators have the opportunity to have
a political science intern assigned to
“help” them. However, some congress-
men and senators refuse this “help” on
the grounds that these interns generate
so many ideas that they disrupt the leg-
islator’s regular business.
Making Ideas Useful
Yet innovation is necessary in business-
and innovation begins with somebody’s
proposal. What isthe answer for the man
with a new idea? I have two thoughts
to offer:
1. He must work with the situation as it
is. Since the executive is already con-
stantly bombarded with problems, there
is little wonder that after a while he
does not want any more new ideas. The
“idea man” must leam to accept this as
a fact of life and act accordingly.
2. When he suggests an idea, the re-
sponsible procedure is to include at least
some minimal indication of what it in-
volves in terms of costs, risks, manpower,
time, and perhaps even specific people
who ought to carry it through. That /5 re-
sponsible behavior, because it makes
it easier for the executive to evaluate
the idea and because it raises fewer
problems. That /5 the way creative think-
ing will more likely be converted into
innovation.
It will be argued, of course, that to
saddle the creative individual with the
responsibility of spelling out the details
of implementation would curb or even
throttle his unique talent. This is proba-
bly true. But this could be salutary, both
for him and for the company. Ideas are
useless unless used. The proof of their
value is their implementation. Until
then they are in limbo. If the executive’s
job pressures mean that an idea seldom
gets a good hearing unless it is respon-
sibly presented, then the unthrottled
and irresponsible creative man is use-
less to the company. If an insistence
on some responsibility for implemen-
tation throttles him, he may produce
fewer ideas, but their chances of a judi-
cious hearing and therefore of being
followed through are greatly improved.
The company will benefit by trying the
ideas, and the creative man will benefit
by getting the satisfaction of knowing
he is being listened to. He will not have
to be a malcontent any more.
Deciding Factors
This is not to suggest that every idea
needs a thoroughly documented study
before it is mentioned to anyone. Far
from it. What is needed will vary from
case to case depending on four factors:
The Position or Rank ofthe Idea Orig-
inator in the Organization. How “re-
sponsible” a man needs to act for an
idea to get a hearing clearly depends
on his rank.
The powerful chief executive officer
can simply instruct subordinates to take
and develop one of his ideas. That is
enough to give it a hearing and perhaps
even implementation. To that extent,
talk (5 virtually action. Similarly, the
head of a department can do the same
thing in his domain. But when the ideas
fiow in the opposite direction – upward
instead of downward-they are unlikely
to fiow unless they are supported by
the kind of follow-through 1 have been
urging.
The Complexity ofthe Idea. The more
complex and involved the implications
of an idea, and the more change and
rearrangement it may require within
the organization or in its present way of
doingthings,then obviously the greater
is the need to cover the required ground
in some responsible fashion when the
proposal is presented.
But I do not suggest that the “how
to” questions need to be covered as
THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE AUGUST 2002 141
BEST OF HBR
thoroughly and carefully as would be
required by, say, a large corporation’s
executive committee when it finally de-
cides whether to implement or drop the
suggestion. Such a requirement would
be so rigid that it might dry up all ideas
because their originators simply would
not have the time, competence, or staff
help to go to that much effort.
The Nature ofthe Industry. How much
supporting detail a subordinate should
submit along with his idea ofren de-
pends on the industry involved and the
intent of the idea.
One reason there is such a high pre-
mium put on “creativity” in advertising
is because the first requisite of an ad is
to get attention. Hence “creativity” fre-
quently revolves around the matter of
trying to achieve visual or auditory im-
pact such that the ad stands out above
the constantly expanding stream of ad-
vertising noise to which the badgered
consumer is subjected. To this extent,
in the advertising industry, being “cre-
ative” is quite a different thing, by and
large, from what it is, say, in the steel in-
dustry. Putting an eye patch on the man
in the Hathaway shirt is “no sooner said
than done.” The idea is virtually syn-
onymous with its implementation. But
Many people who are full of ideas simply
do not understand how an organization
must operate to get things done.
in the steel industry, an idea, say, to
change the discount structure to en-
courage users of cold, rolled sheet steel
to place bigger but fewer orders is so
full of possible complications and prob-
lems that talk is far from being action or
even a program for action. To get even
a sympathetic first hearing, such an idea
needs to be accompanied by a good deal
of factual and logical support.
The Attitude and Job ofthe Person to
Whom the Idea Is Submitted. Everybody
knows that some bosses are more re-
ceptive to new ideas than others. Some
are more receptive to extreme novelty
than others. The extent of their known
receptiveness will in part determine the
elaborateness of support a suggested
new idea requires at its original stage.
But, equally important, it is essential
to recognize that the greater the pres-
sures of day-to-day operating responsi-
bilities on the executive, the more resis-
tance he is likely to have to new ideas. If
the operating burden happens to fall on
him, his job is to make the present setup
work smoothly and well. A new idea re-
quires change, and change upsets the
smooth (or perhaps faltering) regularity
of the present operation on whose ef-
fectiveness he is being judged and on
which his career future depends. He has
very good reason to be extremely care-
ful about a new proposal. He needs lots
of good risk-reducing reasons before he
will look at one very carefully.
What his actual requirements are
will also depend on the attitudes of his
superiors to risk taking and mistakes. In
one company I am famihar with, the
two most senior officers have a unique
quality of enormous receptivity to nov-
elty – sometimes the wilder the pro-
posal, the better. The result is that new
ideas, no matter how vaguely stated
or extreme, get sym-
pathetic and quick
hearings throughout
all levels of the com-
pany. But this is a rare
organization for two
reasons.
First, the chairman
is now about 40 years old. He became
president when he was 28, having been
selected by his predecessor as the heir
apparent when he was about 24. He
vaulted quickly from one top job to
another, never really having to spend
very much time “making good” in the
conventional sense in a difficult day-to-
day operating job at a low level. Virtu-
ally his entire career was one of high-
level responsibility where his ideas
could be passed down to a corps of sub-
ordinates for detailed examination and
evaluation. These experiences taught
him the value of wild ideation without
his having to risk his rise to the top
by seeming to suggest irresponsible
projects.
Second, the present president of this
same company came in as a vice presi-
dent, also at 28, and directly from an ad-
vertising agency. His career experiences
were similar to the chairman’s.
It is easy for both of these men to be
permissive, in part because they have
never really had to risk their climb up
the hierarchical ladder by seeming to
shoot wild. They always had teams of
subordinates to check their ideas and
willing superiors to listen to them. Any-
body who has not had this history or
conditioning will find it extremely hard
to change once he gets very far up the
corporate pecking order.
ln short, a pemiissive,open, risk-taking
environment cannot be created simply
by the good intentions ofthe top man-
agement. The reason is either that high-
level executives who have got to their
top posts by a lifetime of judicious ex-
ecutive behavior are incapable of chang-
ing their habits or that, if their habits
are changed, their subordinates will not
believe they really mean it. And in lots
of small ways, they see the Justifica-
tion of their disbeliefs.
Need for Discipline
Writers on the subject of creativity and
innovation invariably emphasize the es-
sential primacy ofthe creative impulse
itself. Almost as an afterthought they
talk about the necessity of teaching
people to sell their ideas and of stim-
ulating executives to listen to the ideas
of subordinates and peers. Then they
ofren go on casually to make some “do-
gooder” statement about the impor-
tance of creating a permissive organi-
zational climate for creative people.
They rarely try to look at the executive’s
job and suggest how the creative genius
might alter his behavior to suit the
boss’s requirements. It is always the boss
who is being told to mend his ways. The
reason for their one-sided siding with
the creative man is that they are ofren
142 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
Creativity Is Not Enough
hostile, just as he is, to the idea of “the
organization” itself. They actively dis-
like organizations, but they seldom
know exactly why.
I think 1 know the reason. It is that
organization and creativity do not
seem to go together, while organiza-
tion and conformity do. Advocacy of a
“permissive environment” for creativ-
ity in an organization is often a veiled
attack on the idea ofthe organization
itself. This quickly becomes clear when
one recognizes this inescapable fact:
One of the collateral purposes of an
organization is to be inhospitable to a
great and constant flow of ideas and
creativity.
Whether we are talking about the
U.S. Steel Corporation or the United
Steelworkers of America, the U.S. Army
or the Salvation Army, the United
States or the U.S.S.R., the purpose of
organization is to achieve the kind and
degree of order and conformity neces-
sary to do a particular job. The organi-
zation exists to restrict and channel the
range of individual actions and behavior
into a predictable and knowable rou-
tine. Without organization there would
be chaos and decay. Organization exists
in order to create that amount and kind
of inflexibility that are necessary to get
the most pressingly intended job done
efficiently and on time.
Creativity and innovation disturb that
order. Hence, organization tends to be
inhospitable to creativity and innova-
tion, though without creativity and in-
novation it would eventually perish.
That is why small, one-man shops are
so often more animated and “innova-
tionary” than large ones. They have vir-
tually no organization (precisely because
they are one-man shops) and often are
run by self-willed autocrats who act on
impulse.
Organizations are created to achieve
order. They have policies, procedures,
and formal or powerfully informal (un-
spoken) rules. The job for which the or-
ganization exists could not possibly get
done without these rules, procedures,
and policies. And these produce the
so-called conformity that is so blithely
deprecated by the critics of the organi-
zation and life inside it.
Parkinson’s Flaw
It is not surprising that C. Northcote
Parkinson and his Parkinson’s Law enjoy
such an admiring following among
teachers, writers, consultants, and pro-
fessional social critics. Most of these
people have carefully chosen as their
own professions work that keeps them
him probably is too paranoid to be
tmsted with a responsible job. But most
of today’s blithe cartoonists of the or-
ganization would be impoverished for
material were they not blessed with an
enormous ignorance ofthe facts of orga-
nizational life. Let me put it as emphat-
ically as I can. A company cannot func-
tion as an anarchy. It must be organized,
it must be routinized, it must be planned
in some way in the various stages of its
operation. That is why we have so many
Advocates of creativity must understand the pressing facts
of the executive’s life: Every time an idea is submitted to him,
it creates more problems for him – and he already has enough.
as far as modem society lets anyone get
from the rigorous taskmaster of the
organization. Most of them more or less
lead a sort of one-man, self-employed
existence in which there are few make-
or-break postmortems oftheir activities.
They live pretty much in autonomous
isolation. Many of them, I suspect, have
avoided life in the organization because
they are incapable of submitting to its
rigid discipline. Parkinson has provided
them a way in which they can laugh at
the majority, who do submit to the or-
ganization, and feel superior rather than
oppressed, as minorities usually do.
It is also not surprising (indeed it is
quite expected) that Parkinson himself
should be anything but an organization
man-that he is a teacher of history, a
painter, and, of all things, a historian
on warfare in the Eastem Seas. This is
about as far as you can get from the
modern landbound organization. Par-
kinson’s vmtings have in recent years
brought him into such continuing con-
tact with business that he has now de-
cided to go into business himself. In
doing so, he has proved the truth of all
that I have been saying: The business
he has decided to enter is, of course, the
consulting business!
Parkinson is very entertaining. The
executive who carmot laugh along with
organizations of so many different
kinds. And to the extent that operations
planning is needed, we get rigidity,
order, and therefore some amount of
conformity. No organization can have
everybody running off uncoordinated
in several different directions at once.
There must be rules and standards.
Where there are enough rules, there
will be damn fool rules. These can be
mercilessly cartooned. But st̂ me rules
which to an expert on ancient naval his-
tory look ftx>lish are far from foolish if
he bothers to leam about the problems
of the business, or the government, or
whatever group the particular organi-
zation is designed to deal with.
From Creativity
to Innovation
All this raises a seemingly frightening
question. If conformity and rigidity are
necessary requisites of organization,
and if these in turn help stifle creativ-
ity, and furthermore if the creative man
might indeed be stifled if he is required
to spell out the details needed to con-
vert his ideas into effective innovations,
does all this mean that modem organi-
zations have evolved into such invo-
luted monsters that they must suffer the
fearful fate ofthe dinosaur-too big and
unwieldy to survive?
THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE AUGUST 2002 143
BEST OF HBR
The answer to this is no. First, it is
questionable whether the creative im-
pulse would automatically dry up if the
idea man is required to take some re-
sponsibility for follow-through. The peo-
ple who so resolutely proclaim their
own creative energy will scarcely assert
that they need a hothouse for its fiow-
ering. Secondly, the large organization
Ideas are useless unless used. The proof
of their value is their implementation.
Until then they are in limbo.
has some important attributes that ac-
tually facilitate innovation. Its capacity
to distribute risk over its broad eco-
nomic base and among the many indi-
viduals involved in implementing new-
ness are significant. They make it both
economically and, for the individuals
involved, personally easier to break un-
tried ground.
What ofren misleads people is that
making big operating or policy changes
requires also making big organizational
changes. Yet it is precisely one of the
great virtues of a big organization that,
in the short run at least, its momentum
is irreversible and its organizational
structure is, for all practical purposes,
nearly impenetrable. A vast machinery
exists to get a certain job done. That job
must continue to get the toughest kind
of serious attention, no matter how
exotically revolutionary a big operating
or policy change may be. The boat can
and may have to be rocked, but one
virtue of a big boat is that it takes an
awful lot to rock it. Certain people or
departments in the boat may feel the
rocking more than others and to that
extent strive to avoid the incidents
that produce it. But the built-in stabiliz-
ers of bigness and of group decision
making can be used as powerful infiu-
ences in encouraging people to risk these
incidents.
Finally, the large organization has an
organizational alternative to the alleged
“conservatizing” consequences of big-
ness. There is some evidence that the
relatively rigid organization can build
into its own structure certain flexibilities
which would provide an organizational
home forthe creative but irresponsible
individual. What may be required, es-
pecially in the large organization, is not
so much a suggestion-box system as a
specialized group whose
function is to receive ideas,
work them out, and follow
them through in the nec-
essary manner. This would
be done afrer the group
has evaluated each idea
and, preferably, spoken at
length with its originator. Then when
the idea and the necessary follow-
through are passed on to the appro-
priate executive, he will be more willing
to listen. To illustrate:
• An organizational setup that approxi-
mates this structure has been estab-
lished in the headquarters Marketing
Department ofthe Mobil Oil Company.’
• A similar approach exists at the Scher-
ing Corporation under the name Man-
agement R&D. Its purpose is to nur-
ture and develop new ideas and new
methods of decision making.'”
• Another suggestion which takes less
solidly tangible organizational form in
practice has been made by Murray D.
Lincoln, president of Nationwide In-
surance Company. He makes a plea for
the notion of a company having a Vice
President in Charge of Revolution.^’
Beyond these, the problems and
needs of companies differ. To this ex-
tent, they may have to find their own
special ways of dealing with the issues
discussed in this article. The important
point is to be conscious of the possible
need or value of some system of making
creativity yield more innovation.
Some companies have greater need
for such measures than others have.
And, as pointed out earlier, the need
hinges in part on the nature of the in-
dustry. Certainly it is easier to convert
creativity into innovation in the adver-
tising business than it is in an operating
company with elaborate production
processes, long channels of distribution,
and a complex administrative setup.
For those critics of and advisers to
U.S. industry who repeatedly call for
more creativity in business, it is well to
try first to understand the profound dis-
tinction between creativity and innova-
tion and then perhaps to spend a little
more time calling on creative individu-
als to take added responsibility for im-
plementation. The fi:iictifying potentials
of creativity vary enormously with the
particular industry, with the climate in
the organization, with the organiza-
tional level of the idea man, and with
the kinds of day-in, day-out problems,
pressures, and responsibilities of the
man to whom he addresses his ideas.
Without clearly appreciating these facts,
those who declare that a company will
somehow grow and prosper merely by
having more creative people make a
fetish of their own illusions. ^
1. See, for instance, Alex F. Osbom, Applied Imagi-
nation: Principles and Procedures of Creative Think-
ing (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953).
2.See Bernard Levenson,”Bureaucradc Succession,”
in Complex Organizations: A Sociological Ri’adcr,
edited by Amitai Etzioni (New York, Rinehart &
Company, 1961).
3. See Stanley Stark,”Mills, Mannheim, and the Psy-
chology of Knowledge,” mimeographed (Urbana,
University of Illinois, 1960).
4. G.S. Klein, “The Personal World Through Per-
ception,” in Perception: An Approach to Personality,
edited by R.R. Biake and G.V. Ramsey (New York,
The Ronald Press, I95i)- For more on “the creative
personality,” see Morris I. Stein and Shirley J.
Heinze, Creativity and the Individual (Glencoe, Illi-
nois, The Free Press, 1960).
5. Herbert Feigl,” Philosophical Embarrassments of
Psychology,” ;4merf’c(iJi Psychologist, March 1959.
6. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1956.
7. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1955.
8. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1962,
9. For a detailed discussion of how such a setup
might operate and be organized, see my Innovation
in Marketing (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1962).
10. See Victor M. Longstreet,” Management R & D,”
HBR July-August 1961.
n. New York, McGraw-Hill, i960.
Reprint R0208K
To order reprints, see the last p a ^
of Executive Summaries.
To further explore the topic of this
article, go to httpv7explore.hbr.org.
144 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
To learn more about the ideas in
“Creativity is Not Enough,” explore
the related articles listed at the right.
You may access these materials on
the Harvard Business School Publishing
Web site, www.harvardbusinessonline.org,
or by calling 800-988-0886 (in the United
States and Canada) or 617-783-7500.
EXPLORING FURTHER
Creativity Is Not Enough
A R T I C L E S
“Managing Innovation: Controlled Chaos”
James Brian Quinn
Harvard Business Review, May-June 1985
Product No, 85312
Quinn agrees that striking the right balance between organizational flexibility
and rigidity is an essential characteristic of successfully innovative companies.
He argues that large companies can be just as innovative as small businesses
and entrepreneurs-if they accept the tumultuous realities ofthe innovation
process. To balance predictable orderliness and creative chaos, successful inno-
vators pay close attention to customers’ needs, avoid overly detailed technical
or marketing plans early in the innovation process, and let entrepreneurial
teams pursue competing ideas within a clear framework of goals and limits.
They also take a long-term view and establish incentive systems that reward
risk taking. In short, they act very much like successful small entrepreneurs.
“How to Kill Creativity”
Teresa M. Amabile
Harvard Business Review, September-October 1998
Product No. 3499
Amabile suggests that companies’ overreliance on control and order can under-
mine employees’ ability to generate and implement powerful ideas. How to
avoid killing creativity? Boost employees’ expertise (technical, procedural, and
intellectual knowledge), creative-thinking skills (imaginative problem-solving),
and motivation (passion for speciflc challenges). In particular, increase employ-
ees’ intrinsic motivation: Give stretch assignments and decision-making
freedom. Support innovations with sufficient time and resources. And let
employees know that what they do matters.
“Change the Way You Persuade”
Gary A. Williams and Robert B. Miller
Harvard Business Review, May 2002
Product No. 9969
This article focuses on strategies for ensuring that a good idea gets a hearing
and a champion – essential steps toward innovation. To gain support for their
ideas, creative thinkers must understand their listeners’ particular decision-
making styles and adapt their presentations accordingly. The authors identify
flve styles: charismatics, thinkers, skeptics, followers, and controllers. Each style
requires certain kinds of information at specific steps in the decision-making
process. Charismatics, for example, are easily enthralled but base their final
decisions on balanced information and bottom-line results. Skeptics challenge
every data point and decide based on their gut feelings. The article details
tactics for each style.
THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE AUGUST 2002 145
Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009
Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for
the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material
in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may
not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any
other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on
learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning
management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content
available through such means. For rates and permission, contact permissions@harvardbusiness.org.
The New World of the
Anthropocene1
J A N Z A L A S I E W I C Z *
Department of Geology, University of Leicester, U.K.
M A R K W I L L I A M
S
Department of Geology, University of Leicester, U.K. and
British Geological Survey, Nottingham, U.K.
W I L L S T E F F E N
Australian National University, Canberra
P A U L C R U T Z E N
Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany
The Anthropocene, following the lost world of the Holocene,
holds challenges for both science and society.
The notion that humankind has changed the world is not
new. Over a century ago, terms such as the Anthropozoic
(1), Psychozoic (2), and Noosphere (3) were conceived
to denote the idea of humans as a new global forcing
agent.
These ideas received short shrift in the geological com-
munity (4), seeming absurd when set aside the vastness
(newly realized, also) of geological time. Moreover, the
scarring of the landscape associated with industrialization
may appear as transformation, but the vicissitudes of the
geological pastsmeteorite strikes, extraordinary volcanic
outbursts, colliding continents, and disappearing oceanss
seemed of an epic scale beyond the largest factories and
most populous cities.
So when one of us (P.C.) proposed the new term
“Anthropocene” for this concept a decade ago (5), why did
it not also become a discarded footnote in the history of
geological ideas? It helps that the term is vivid, as much for
the public as for scientists. More importantly, it was coined
at a time of dawning realization that human activity was
indeed changing the Earth on a scale comparable with some
of the major events of the ancient past. Some of these changes
are now seen as permanent, even on a geological time-scale.
Hence, the term Anthropocene quickly began to be used
by practicing scientists (6) to denote the current interval of
time, one dominated by human activity. The term, though,
was (and currently remains) informal and not precisely
defined. However, in 2008, the Stratigraphy Commission of
the Geological Society of London decided, by a large majority,
that there was merit in considering the possible formalization
of this term: that is, that it might eventually join the Cambrian,
Jurassic, Pleistocene, and other such units on the Geological
Time Scale (7).
Note the careful wording. This was not the same as
formalizing the term (this Commission does not have that
power). Nevertheless, it was a clear signal that a body of
independent geologists (each chosen for their technical
expertise in the discipline of stratigraphy) thought that the
case should be examined further.
The first (of many) formal steps are now being taken. An
Anthropocene Working Group has been initiated, as part of
the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (the body
that deals with formal units of the current Ice Ages). That is
itself part of the International Commission on Stratigraphy,
in turn answerable to the International Union of Geological
Sciences. All of these bodies will have to be convinced that
the case to formally include the Anthropocene in the
Geological Time Scale is overwhelming, and, if so, to agree
on a formulation of it that will be widely acceptable. The
work involved will take several years to accomplish, and the
outcome is not certain. The Geological Time Scale is held
dear by geologists (because it is fundamental to their work),
and it is not amended lightly.
In this article, therefore, we outline the scale of human
modification of the Earth on which the concept of the
Anthropocene rests, describe the means by which geological
time units are established, and discuss the particular
problems and implications of discussing the Anthropocene
as a formal geological time term.
The Scale of Environmental Change
First, how have the actions of humans altered the course of
Earth’s deep history? The answers boil down to the unprec-
1 Editor’s Note: This manuscript was submitted prior to ES&T
changing its manuscript parameters for Viewpoints. For the new
format, please read the details at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/
es903081n.
M
A
RK
W
IL
LI
A
M
S
Left – Skyscrapers on the east bank of the Huangpu River in
Shanghai, China, photographed from the viewing platform of the
Oriental Pearl Tower. Shanghai now has a population
approaching 20 million inhabitants. Right – Ta Prohm, Angkor,
Cambodia. Stones of this Buddhist monastery built in the late
12th century are held in a grip by Kapok trees. Angkor may
have been the world’s first ‘million city’ long before London.
Environ. Sci. Technol. 2010, 44, 2228–2231
2228 9 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / VOL. 44, NO. 7, 2010 10.1021/es903118j 2010 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 02/25/2010
D
ow
nl
oa
de
d
vi
a
70
.2
6.
17
0.
18
7
on
J
ul
y
22
, 2
01
9
at
1
8:
12
:1
4
(U
T
C
).
S
ee
h
tt
ps
:/
/p
ub
s.
ac
s.
or
g/
sh
ar
in
gg
ui
de
li
ne
s
fo
r
op
ti
on
s
on
h
ow
t
o
le
gi
ti
m
at
el
y
sh
ar
e
pu
bl
is
he
d
ar
ti
cl
es
.
edented rise in human numbers since the early nineteenth
centurysfrom under a billion then to over six billion now,
set to be nine billion or more by midcentury. This population
growth is intimately linked with massive expansion in the
use of fossil fuels, which powered the Industrial Revolution,
and allowed the mechanization of agriculture that enabled
those additional billions to be fed.
The most plainly visible physical effects of this on the
landscapesthe growth of the world’s megacities, for
instancesmay in some ways be the most transient. In such
“terraforming”, humans have brought about a roughly order-
of-magnitude increase in the long-term rate of erosion and
sedimentation (8, 9). This is a remarkable, though perhaps
short-lived, sedimentary signal. If construction stops or slows,
for whatever reason, then natural geomorphologic processes
will rapidly re-establish themselves, as shown by the fate of
“lost” cities such as Angkor in Cambodia.
Far more profound are the chemical and biological
effects of global human activity. It may seem remarkable
that changes to mere trace components of the Earth’s
atmospheresCO2, methane (CH4), and so onscan so fun-
damentally impact the Earth. Nevertheless, the concept of
control of surface temperature by levels of greenhouse gases
(GHGs), as originally worked out by Arrhenius (10) and
Chamberlain (11), has been vindicated by subsequent work.
Today, the rise in CO2 to over a third above preindustrial
levels has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt: by
systematic measurement since the 1950s (12); and by the
record of atmospheric composition, now nearly a million
years long, preserved in Antarctic ice (13).
The rise in temperatures, that, at high latitudes, already
exceed modeled predictions, has important consequences.
The fringes of the great polar ice-sheets, once thought to
react sluggishly to temperature rises, are now seen to respond
quickly and dynamically (14). The ensuing sea level rise,
scarcely begun, may ultimately be of the order of several
meters (15) if temperatures rise by some 2-5 °C, as predicted
(16).
Global temperature rises will have far-reaching conse-
quences for the biosphere. Species will migrate (if they are
able to) to track their optimum climate belt, a phenomenon
more pronounced in the oceans than on land (17): changes
in, say, larval hatching times can cause cascade-like changes
in entire ecosystems, when these larvae act as food for other
animals.
The ultimate effect on the biosphere of climate change
coupled with other human stressors (habitat fragmentation,
invasive species, predation) is a sharp increase in the rate of
extinctions (18). Current estimates put the extinction rate at
100-1000 times greater than the background level (18, 19),
and the rate is projected to increase by a further 10-fold this
century (18). This current human-driven wave of extinctions
looks set to become Earth’s sixth great extinction event (20).
Enhanced dissolution of increased atmospheric CO2 in
the oceans, too, is increasing their acidity. Significant drops
in oceanic pH have already occurred, and further projected
decreases will stress calcifying organisms such as reef corals,
though the biological response is complex (21). This factor
alone may substantially change marine ecosystems over the
next century.
The Stratal Context
The above summarizes some of the environmental changes
currently taking place. The Anthropocene, though, if it is to
be used as a formal geological term, needs to be placed within
a context of Earth history. We need to know, therefore, how
that history is analyzed and classified.
In the Geological Time Scale (22), the fundamental units
of the Earth’s 4.57 billion year history are named, defined,
and arranged. Names such as “Jurassic” are used partly
because they are useful and convenient (much as historians
use terms such as “Roman” and “Victorian”) and partly
because the framework of the Earth’s history was essentially
worked out before radiometric dating was discovered: the
early geologists had essentially no idea of how old the Earth
really was.
Those early geologists, though, could recognize that
particular stratal successions contained distinctive fossilssfor
example the strata of the Jura Mountains with particular
fossil mollusks. Such fossil assemblages could be traced
around the world to establish a stratal unit that was translated
into a time unit: the Jurassic. It was only much later that the
Jurassic Period was found to start about 200 million years
ago and finish some 145 million years ago. But, for many
practical purposes, this did not mattersone could still classify
and correlate rocks and build up a coherent Earth history.
The precise definition of these units has been (and
remains) troublesome. Even after the advent of radiometric
dating, they were mostly not defined in terms of agreed
agessfor instance by saying that the Jurassic Period started
at 200 million years ago exactly. This is because, even now,
radiometric dating remains too imprecise to allow the
boundary to be fixed precisely: there would be about a half
a million year’s “fuzziness” around it.
Today, one typically looks for a “marker” level where the
strata above and below are recognizably different (usually
because they contain different types of fossils) and then
selects the place in the world that best shows that level. That
point then is chosen to represent, formally, the beginning of
a geological time unit. Its title is grandsit is a Global
Stratigraphic Section and Point, but more popularly it is
known as a “golden spike”; it is the standard reference level
for a geological time boundary.
Many such formal time boundaries mark upheavals in
Earth history. This is mostly for practical reasons. It is easy
to tell Tertiary strata from Cretaceous strata because the
former lack fossils of the many types of organisms (am-
monites, dinosaurs, and so on) that died out in the abrupt
end-Cretaceous mass extinction event. Therefore, the ex-
tinction event itself is the obvious marker, signaling the
transition from one Earth dynasty to another.
However, although the names of the main geological
periods and eras are familiar to any first-year geology student,
defining them precisely has been procedurally prolonged and
often controversial. Not all geological time boundaries are
as clear-cut as that at the end of the Cretaceous Period:
transition between successive dynasties of Earth history were
often complex and protracted, and in such cases an optimal
level has to be decided upon to represent a formal boundary,
typically after extensive academic debate. There are tussles
too (often with a hint of nationalism) over which stratal
section in which country should have the honor of hosting
the golden spike. The Ordovician Period, for instance, took
over 20 years to define. Only this year, the Quaternary Period
(that we live in) has been formally modified to more exactly
correspond to the beginning of full glaciation on Earth, after
a process that can best be described as fraught (23). It is
unlikely that the Anthropocene will have an easy and
uncontested passage through the various committeess
particularly as it is novel not just as a time unit, but novel,
indeed unprecedented, as regards its analysis and consider-
ation.
Assessing the Anthropocene
All of the previous geological eras, periods, and epochs have
been defined in geological terms, by comparing one set of
rock strata with another. Earth scientists have grown
increasingly sophisticated in interpreting strata in terms of
VOL. 44, NO. 7, 2010 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 9 2229
the history they represent. Nevertheless, the Earth’s history
has been only patchily preserved, with substantial biases.
The Anthropocene is different. We are (formally or
informally) living within it, and are able to observe landscape,
assess living biodiversity, measure atmospheric composition
and sea temperature, gauge ice thickness and sea level height.
Thus, considerable translation is needed to describe this unit
of one discipline with the languages and measures of other
disciplines. The Anthropocene Working Group hence,
uniquely, needs to include botanists, zoologists, atmospheric,
and ocean (and other) scientists as well as geologists.
The Anthropocene is represented physically by the
sediment layers that have accumulated in recent years. Some
of these layers are human-madesthe concrete and bricks of
our roads and cities. Others are heavily modifiedsthe soils
of our fields, and the polluted muds of estuaries. Yet others
have formed bereft of measurable human influencesthe
recent sand dunes of the Sahara or the Empty Quarter of
Arabia. All are Anthropocene (because this is a unit of time,
and not of process), and their distinctiveness and the ease
of their separation from older (pre-Anthropocene) strata will
be crucial to decisions about formalizing this unit.
Cross-comparing the data from present and past will not
be easy. Take the biological signal. In ancient strata, this is
represented almost exclusively by fossils. Not all organisms
fossilize equally well: most do not have tough skeletons or
hard shells, and so scarcely fossilize at all. Marine organisms
are more likely to be fossilized than terrestrial ones (because
the land is largely a realm of erosion and the sea is one of
sediment accumulation). And fossils of terrestrial organisms
almost all come from low-lying coasts and river plains; our
knowledge of mountain-dwelling organisms of the geological
past is virtually nil.
By contrast, modern assessment of living organisms, of
their survival or extinction, is done without reference to how
tough their skeleton is. We know more of what is going on
on land (where we live) than in the sea. And we have a better
assessment of “popular” organisms (such as butterflies and
mammals), that rarely fossilize, than of the humble inver-
tebrates that are better potential fossils. This is not to say
that comparison of the living world and the ancient one is
impossible. But care will be needed to say how significant
is the current, ongoing extinction event by comparison with
those that have refashioned life in the pastsand therefore
how significant is the Anthropocene, biologically.
There is another major difference between the Anthro-
pocene and the previous geological ages. These others have
all terminated: we know their entire history. The Anthro-
pocene is ongoing. By almost any measure, the effects of the
human perturbation will continue for centuries and mil-
lennia; some (such as the biotic change wrought) will have
permanent effects. The long-term extent of this “built-in”
future change is currently unknowable, as it largely depends
on the interplay of feedback effects that will either amplify
or diminish the effects of anthropogenic change.
The Anthropocene is, so far, geologically very briefsin the
original concept (from the beginning of the Industrial Revolu-
tion) merely a couple of centuries. This need not detract from
its value as a geological time unit, because the Geological Time
Scale is utilitarian, not abstract. Most epochs, for instance, are
typically several million years in duration. However, we are
currently (formally, still) living in the Holocene Epoch, which
started just over 11,000 years ago. The Holocene is merely the
last of some one hundred climate phases of the Quaternary
Period. This is not symmetrical, but it makes practical sense to
humans, as we are surrounded by and live on Holocene
sedimentary deposits and have to deal with themsfor engi-
neering, agriculture, and so onsevery day.
Similarly, Anthropocene strata form part of our sur-
rounding environment (we live in and drive on Anthropocene
rock constructions that we call houses and roads, for
example). Furthermore, the Holocene is essentially a standard
interglacial phase, albeit perhaps prolonged by modest
preindustrial greenhouse gas emissions associated with early
agriculture (24). The Anthropocene, by contrast, is geologi-
cally unique and in many ways novel: no previous migrations
of organisms, for instance, have rivalled the human-caused
introductions of alien species (20, 25).
Scale and Beginning of the Anthropocene
In common language, epochs and eras are largely inter-
changeable. Not so in geology. An era is a very large-scale
unitsthe Mesozoic, the entire near-two-hundred-million-
year time span of the dinosaurs, is made up of the Triassic,
Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, for instance. Epochs are
much more modest, being subdivisions of geological periods.
As well as duration, what is important is distinctivenesssand
that reflects the scale of environmental change across the
boundaries. The Mesozoic is bracketed by the two largest
and most abrupt mass extinctions known (the Permian-
Triassic, or P-T, boundary when over 90% of species were
killed off, and the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T, when the
dinosaurssand much elsesdisappeared), while epoch bound-
aries represent smaller-scale changes.
What might the Anthropocene be, on current evidence?
Consideration of it as an epoch seems reasonable, and
conservative. The scale of change taken place so far, or that
is imminent or unavoidable, appear to have already taken
the Earth out of the envelope of conditions and properties
that mark the Holocene Epoch. There are geological pre-
cedents: the start of the Eocene Epoch, 55 million years ago,
was marked by (natural) greenhouse gas releases, comparable
in scale (if slower than) anthropogenic CO2 releases (26),
associated with ocean acidification and extinction events.
When should a formal Anthropocene Epoch begin? Should
it be linked with the Industrial Revolutionsor with the
postwar “Great Acceleration” (27) of global environmental
change? The latter is associated with the first human-caused
atomic detonations, a factor that is more than just symbolic:
the world’s strata from 1945 on contain tiny but measurable
amounts of artificial radionuclides (28). Should the beginning
of the Anthropocene be fixed by a simple date (say, 1800, or
perhaps 1945)? Or should one seek to place a “golden spike”
as global reference point within some recent strata? Such
practical questions will need resolution prior to formalization.
Implications
Whether to formalize the Anthropocene or not is a question
that will be decided on geological, and, more precisely,
stratigraphic grounds. Does the present scale of the global
change, measured against deep Earth history, justify the
term?sand will formalizing the term be beneficial to working
scientists?
It can be argued that a formal Anthropocene Epoch would
inherently downplay the scale and significance of prein-
dustrial (early agricultural) modification of landscape (24, 29)
and oversimplify the complex and historically protracted
human effects on the natural environment. In response, one
might say that existing formal boundaries within deep
geological time do not typically have such a deleterious
scientific effect; more typically the research carried out to
establish them illuminates the complex course of palaeoen-
vironmental history. Regardless, the Anthropocene has taken
root in the scientific community, and is now unlikely to
decline through practical neglect by working scientists.
The term, also, has a resonance that goes beyond the
modification of a geological classificatory scheme. It has
attracted public interest, probably because it encapsulatess
indeed integratessthe many and diverse kinds of environ-
2230 9 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / VOL. 44, NO. 7, 2010
mental change that have taken place. The transition from
the Holocene into the Anthropocene may be developed,
toossomewhat controversiallysinto the concept of planetary
boundaries (30), wherein a safe operating space for humanity
may be defined. Moreover, formalization may represent
“official” acknowledgment that the world has changed,
substantially and irreversibly, through human activitysan
acknowledgment akin to the IPCC consensus statements on
climate change.
Much of this global change will be to the detriment of
humans. Not all of it (Greenland, for example, is currently
greeningsand booming), but the present and likely future
course of environmental change seems set to create sub-
stantially more losers, globally, than winners.
The concept of the Anthropocene might, therefore,
become exploited, to a variety of ends. Some of these may
be beneficial, some less so. The Anthropocene might be used
as encouragement to slow carbon emissions and biodiversity
loss, for instance; perhaps as evidence in legislation on
conservation measures (31); or, in the assessment of com-
pensation claims for environmental damage. It has the
capacity to become the most politicized unit, by far, of the
Geological Time Scalesand therefore to take formal geologi-
cal classification into uncharted waters.
However these debates will unfold, the Anthropocene
represents a new phase in the history of both humankind
and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces
became intertwined, so that the fate of one determines the
fate of the other. Geologically, this is a remarkable episode
in the history of this planet.
Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams are members of the Stratigraphy
Commission of the Geological Society of London; Jan is also Vice-
Chair of the International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Clas-
sification, while Mark leads the palaeoclimate team of the British
Geological Survey. Will Steffen served as Director of the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, and is now Director of the ANU
Climate Change Institute. Paul Crutzen, awarded a Nobel Prize in
Chemistry in 1995 for his work on atmospheric ozone, is Professor
emeritus at the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz. Cor-
respondence regarding this article should be addressed to jaz1@le.ac.uk
Literature Cited
(1) Stoppani, A. Corsa di Geologia; Milan, 1873.
(2) Le Conte, J. Elements of Geology; D. Appleton & Co: New York,
1879.
(3) Le Roy E. L’exigence idéaliste et le fait de l’évolution (Idealistic
Exigency and the feat of Evolution); Boivin: Paris, 1927.
(4) Berry, E. W. The term Psychozoic. Science 1925, 44, 16.
(5) Crutzen, P. J. Geology of Mankind. Nature 2002, 415, 23.
(6) Syvitski, J. P. M.; Vörösmarty, C. J.; Kettner, A. J.; Green, P. Impact
of humans on the flux of terrestrial sediment to the global coastal
ocean. Science 2005, 308, 376–380.
(7) Zalasiewicz, J.; Williams, M.; Smith, A.; Barry, T. L.; Bown, P. R.;
Rawson, P.; Brenchley, P.; Cantrill, D.; Coe, A. E.; Gale, A.;
Gibbard, P. L.; Gregory, F. J.; Hounslow, M.; Kerr, A.; Pearson,
P.; Knox, R.; Powell, P.; Waters, C.; Marshall, J.; Oates, M.;
Rawson, P.; Stone, P. Are we now living in the Anthropocene?
GSA Today 2008, 18 (2), 4–8.
(8) Hooke, R. LeB. On the history of humans as geomorphic agents.
Geology 2000, 28, 843–846.
(9) Wilkinson, B. H. Humans as geologic agents: A deep-time
perspective. Geology 2005, 33, 161–164.
(10) Arrhenius, S. On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon
the temperature of the ground. London, Edin., and Dublin Phil.
Mag. and J. Sci. (fifth series) 1896, 41, 237–275.
(11) Chamberlin, T. C. A Group of Hypotheses Bearing on Climatic
Changes. J. Geol. 1897, 5, 653–83.
(12) Keeling, R. F.; Piper, S. C.; Bollenbacher, A. F.; Walker, J. S.
Atmospheric CO2 records from sites in the SIO air sampling
network. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change;
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy: Oak Ridge, TN, 2009;
doi: 10.3334/CDIAC/atg.035; available at http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
trends/co2/sio-mlo.html.
(13) EPICA Community Members 2004. Eight glacial cycles from an
Antarctic ice core. Nature 2004, 429, 623–628.
(14) Overpeck, J. T.; Otto-Bliesner, B. L.; Miller, G. H.; Muhs, D. R.;
Alley, R. B.; Kiehl, J. T. Paleoclimatic evidence for future ice-
sheet instability and rapid sea-level rise. Science 2006, 311, 1747–
1750.
(15) Rahmstorf, S. A semi-empirical approach to projecting future
sea-level rise. Science 2007, 315, 368–370.
(16) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate change
2007: synthesis report. Summary for policy makers; IPCC, 2007;
available at http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07 .
(17) Edwards, M. Sea life (pelagic and planktonic systems) as an
indicator of climate and global change. In Climate Change:
Observed Impacts on Planet Earth; Letcher, T. M., Ed.; Elsevier:
Amsterdam, 2009.
(18) Mace, G.; Masundire, H.; Baillie, J. & colleagues. Biodiversity.
In Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: Current State and Trends;
Hassan, H., Scholes, R. Ash, N., Eds.; Island Press: Washington
DC, 2005.
(19) Pimm, S. L.; Russell, G. J.; Gittleman, J. L.; Brooks, T. M. The
future of biodiversity. Science 1995, 269, 347–350.
(20) Chapin, F. S., III; Zaveleta, E. S.; Eviner, V. T.; Naylor, R. L.;
Vitousek, P. M.; Lavorel, S.; Reynolds, H. L.; Hooper, D. U.; Sala,
O. E.; Hobbie, S. E.; Mack, M. C.; Diaz, S. Consequences of
changing biotic diversity. Nature 2000, 405, 234–242.
(21) Kleypas, J. A.; Feely, R. A.; Fabry, V. J.; Langdon, C.; Sabine, C. L.;
Robbins, L. L. Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reefs
and Other Marine Calcifiers: A Guide for Future Research; report
of a workshop held April 18-20, 2005, St. Petersburg, FL,
sponsored by NSF, NOAA, and the U.S. Geological Survey, 2006.
(22) http://www.stratigraphy.org/upload/ISChart2009 .
(23) Gibbard, P. L.; Head, M. J.; Walker, M. J. C. Subcommission on
Quaternary Stratigraphy. Formal ratification of the Quaternary
System/Period and the Pleistocene Series/Epoch with a base at
2.58 Ma. J. Quat. Sci. 2009; DOI: 10.1002/jqs.1338.
(24) Ruddiman, W. F. The anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began
thousands of years ago. Climate Change 2003, 61, 261–293.
(25) Vitousek, P. M.; Mooney, H. A.; Lubchenco, J.; Melillo, J. M.
Human domination of Earth’s ecosystems. Science 1997, 277,
494–499.
(26) Cohen, A. S.; Coe, A. L.; Kemp, D. B. The Late Palaeocene-Early
Eocene and Toarcian (Early Jurassic) carbon isotope excursions:
a comparison of their time scales, associated environmental
changes, causes and consequences. J. Geol Soc. Lond. 2007,
164, 1093–1108.
(27) Steffen, W.; Crutzen, P. J.; McNeill, J. R. The Anthropocene: Are
humans now overwhelming the great forces of Nature? Ambio
2007, 36, 614–621.
(28) Marshall, W. A.; Gehrels, W. R.; Garnett, M. H.; Freeman,
S. P. H. T.; Maden, C.; Xu, S. The use of ‘bomb spike’ calibration
and high-precision AMS 14C analyses to date salt marsh
sediments deposited during the last three centuries. Quat. Res.
2007, 68, 325–337.
(29) Kaplan, J. O.; Krumhardt, K. M.; Zimmermann, N. The prehistoric
and preindustrial deforestation of Europe. Quat. Sci. Rev. 2009;
doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.09.028.
(30) Rockström, J.; Steffen, W.; Noone, K.; Persson, Å.; Chapin, F. S.,
III; Lambin, E. F.; Lenton, T. M.; Scheffer, M.; Folke, C.;
Schellnhuber, H. J.; Nykvist, B.; de Wit, C. A.; Hughes, T.; van
der Leeuw, S.; Rodhe, H.; Sörlin, S.; Snyder, P. K.; Costanza, R.;
Svedin, U.; Falkenmark, M.; Karlberg, L.; Corell, R. W.; Fabry,
V. J.; Hansen, J.; Walker, B.; Liverman, D.; Richardson, K.;
Crutzen, P.; Foley, J. A. A safe operating space for humanity.
Nature 2009, 461, 472–475.
(31) Vidas, D. Responsibility for the Seas. In Law, Technology and
Science for Oceans in Globalisation; Vidas, D., Ed.; Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers/Brill: The Hague, 2010.
ES903118J
VOL. 44, NO. 7, 2010 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 9 2231