Coca-Cola can get really fresh output because it is getting people who are outside the traditional model and they are combining ideas in very novel ways.

There's real "right brain" creativity that goes into all of the organizational processes that a company utilizes and must continually reinvent in order to conduct its business. But there are also the "left brain" accounting functions that must continually ask how the company is doing financially and whether the creative processes are working for the bottom line.

In a large pharmaceutical company, where it's a big bet, you're going to need finance people to be involved in the decision-making because the investment can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. You're going to have to run scenarios. You might even need agreement from the C.E.O. to make that type of decision. If it's an incremental, low-cost decision in a marketing-oriented company, it may be a very different set of stakeholders a lot further down in the organization.

If you come up with a new product, you can very easily track its contribution to the bottom line. But often the challenge can be both large and subtle.

Creativity is not like the weather: You can do something about it. And you can measure it well enough to determine its effect on sales and profits.

Conducting a creativity audit can be very illuminating because it can tell you how the process is working internally and against the competition.

Creativity, my students learn, is as natural a function of the mind as breathing or digestion are natural functions of the body.