Creativity vs Rationality

I say that "creativity is the mother of wealth while rationality is the father of the same sweet wealth."

A person can have a lot of (amazing, fabulous, original) ideas, and that would be creativity in action. However, without business knowledge and rational economic thinking, such a person will be poor.

Both creativity and rationality are required. Women are more creative and open-minded than men, who in turn tend to be more rational and narrow-minded than women. (Narrow-minded in the sense of "only trusting what has worked before."). Not surprisingly, women vote liberal whereas men vote conservative. Well, it's possible also, of course, that women voted for Bill Clinton because he's such a charmer!

Specifically, creativity enables the envisioning of bold, big and ambitious goals. Next, creativity enables the generation of ideas that are so original that they cut across conventional paths to success (think of ideas as shortcuts).

Rationality, for its part, enables the systematic acquisition of knowhow. In business, for instance, if you don't know how to do something, you will be swiftly eliminated and killed by the competitor who does know. This is why Lee Iacocca wrote that "business is just a bunch of guys sharing notes." He meant "proprietary, confidential, strategic notes."

Rationality also enables the design of systematic escalatory actions, otherwise known as planning.