Inside the Entrepreneurial

Mind:

From Ideas to Reality

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1.Explain the differences among creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

2.Describe why creativity & innovation are such an integral part of entrepreneurship.

3.Understand how the two hemispheres of the human brain function and what role they play in creativity.

4.Explain the 10 “mental locks” that limit individual creativity.

5.Understand how entrepreneurs can enhance the creativity of their employees as well as their own creativity.

6.Describe the steps in the creative process.

7.Discuss techniques for improving the creative process.

CREATIVITY, CREATIVITY,

INNOVATION, INNOVATION,

AND AND

ENTREPRENEURSHIPENTREPRENEURSHIP

Creativity – the ability to develop new ideas and to discover new ways of

looking at problems and opportunities

Innovation – the ability to apply creative solutions to those problems and opportunities to enhance or to

enrich people’s lives.

*Creativity is thinking new things.

*Innovation is doing new things.

“Entrepreneurs succeed by thinking and doing new things or

old things in new ways.”

*Successful entrepreneurs come up with ideas and then find ways

to make them work to solve a problem or to fill a need.

*Sometimes creativity involves generating something from

nothing.

*Creative ideas often arise when entrepreneurs look at something old and think something new and

different.

*Entrepreneurship is the result of a disciplined, systematic process

of applying creativity and innovation to needs and

opportunities in the marketplace.

*Innovation must be a control process because most ideas don’t

work & most innovations fail.

CREATIVITY CREATIVITY

– – A NECESSITY FORA NECESSITY FOR

SURVIVALSURVIVAL

*When developing creative solutions to modern problems, entrepreneurs must go beyond

merely using whatever has worked in the past.

*Entrepreneurs must always be on guard against traditional

assumptions & perspectives about how it should

operate.

Paradigm – a preconceived idea of

what the world is, what it should be like and how it should operate

--- they act as logjams to creativity

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We see what we expect to see

Successful entrepreneurs are those who are constantly pushing technological & economic

boundaries forward must always ask “ Is it time to sacrifice the Queen?”

Success – even survival – in this fiercely competitive, global environment requires

entrepreneurs to tap their creativity (and that of their employee) constantly.

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CAN CEATIVITY BE TAUGHT?

Creative Creative

ThinkingThinking

It all starts in the brain.

The brain has two hemispheres.

Left brain—guided by linear vertical thinking.

Right brain— unconventional, unsystematic and

unstructured thinking.

—the heartof the creative process.

Those who have learned to develop their right-brained thinking skills tend to:

°Always asks the question, “ Is there a better way?”

°Challenge custom, routine, and tradition.

°Be reflective, often staring out windows, deep in thought.

°Play mental games

°Realize that there may be more than one “ right answer”.

°See mistakes and failures as mere “pit stops” on the way to success.

°Relate seemingly unrelated ideas to a problem to generate innovative solutions.

°Have “ helicopter skills”.

BARRIERSBARRIERS TO TO

CREATIVITYCREATIVITY

A Whack on the Side of the Head,

Roger von Oech

1.Searching for the one “right” answer

…there may be (and usually are) several “right” answers

2. Focusing on “being logical”

…discourages the use of one the mind’s most powerful creations: intuition3. Blindly following the rules

Sometimes creativity depends on our ability to break the existing rules so that we can see new ways of doing things.

Ex. Sholes & Company

4. Constantly being practical

Imagining impractical answers to ‘what if” questions can be powerful stepping-stones to creative ideas.

Ex. Thomas Edison

5. Viewing play as frivolous

A playful attitude is fundamental to creative thinking.

There is a close relationship between the “haha” of humor and the “aha” of discovery.

Play gives us the opportunity to reinvent reality and to reformulate established ways of doing things.

Children learn when they play, and so can entrepreneurs.

Watch children playing and you will see them invent games, create new ways of looking at old things, and learn what works (and what doesn’t) in their games.

For instance, a group of fund-raisers discussed the arrangements for an upcoming annual fund-raising banquet…

6. Becoming overly specialized

Creative thinkers tend to be explorers, searching for ideas outside their areas of specialty

7. Avoiding ambiguity

Ambiguity can be a powerful creative stimulus, it encourages us to “think something different”

Ex. Tom and Sally’s Handmade Chocolates

8. Fearing looking foolish

Creative thinking is no place for conformity.

Entrepreneurs look at old ways of doing things and ask, “Is there a better way?” By destroying the old, they create the new.

9. Fearing mistakes

Creative people realize that trying something new often leads to failure; however, they do not see failure as an end.

It represents a learning experience on the way to success.

Ex. Charles F. Kettering

10. Believing that “I’m not creative

…merely an excuse for inaction

Everyone has within himself or herself the potential to be creative; not everyone will tap that potential, however.

ENHANCING CREATIVITY

Enhancing Organizational Creativity

Enhancing Individual Creativity

Enhancing Organizational Creativity

• Right organizational environment can encourage people to develop & cultivate them

• Ensuring that workers have the FREEDOM and the INCENTIVE to be creative is one of the best ways to achieve innovation

EXPECTING CREATIVITY

• One of the best ways to communicate the expectation of creativity is to give employees permission to be creative

• Ex. Brainstorming board

TOLERANCE FAILURE

• Creativity requires chances and managers must remove employees’ fear of failure

ENCOURAING CURIOSITY

• Entrepreneurs and their employees constantly should ask “what if…” questions and to take a “maybe we could…” attitude

• Doing so breaks out the assumptions that limit creativity

VIEWING PROBLEM AS CHALLENGES

• Every problem offers the opportunity for INNOVATION

• Instead of the Entrepreneur fix all the problems, let the employees take part in finding the solutions

(EMPOWERMENT)

PROVIDING THECREATIVITY TRAINING

• Everyone has the capacity to be creative, but developing that creativity requires training

• Training: books seminarsworkshops

professional meetings

..helps everyone learn to tap their creativity

PROVIDING SUPPORT• Entrepreneurs must give employees the

tools and the resources they need to be creative

• Entrepreneurs should remember that creativity often requires nonwork phases, and allowing employees time to “daydream”

• Ex. 15% of time on pet projects

REWARDING CREATIVITY

• Encourage creativity by rewarding it when it occurs

• Financial rewards

• Non-monetary – more powerful

• Ex. Idea lottery

MODELING CREATIVE BEHAVIOR

• Creativity is “caught” as much as it is “taught”

• Entrepreneurs set examples of creative behavior, taking chances, and challenging the status quo (will soon find their employees doing the same)

ENHANCINGINDIVIDUAL CREATIVIY

ALLOW YOURSELFTO BE CREATIVE

• One of the biggest obstacles creativity occurs when a person believes that he or she is not creative

• Give yourself the permission to be creativepermission to be creative is the first step toward establishing a pattern of creative thinking

GIVE YOUR MINDFRESH INPUT EVERYDAY

• Stimulate your mind

• Do something different each day:

“listen” to a radio station

take a walk through a park or shopping center

Pick up a magazine you have never read

KEEP A JOURNAL

• Create ideas are too valuable to waste so always keep a journal to record them as soon as you get them

READ BOOKS OR TAKE A CLASS ON CREATIVITY

• Creative thinking is a technique that anyone can learn

• Understanding and applying the principles of creativity can improve the ability to develop new ideas

TAKE SOME TIME OFF

• Relaxation is a vital to the creative process

• It is often this time, while the subconcious works a problem, that the mind generates many creative solutions

THECREATIVE PROCESS

The Creative Process

Joe Designer Inc.

Step i. Preparation. It involves creative thinking and might include formal education, on-the-job training, work experience and taking advantage of other learning opportunities.

How to prepare the mind for creative thinking?

Have the attitude of a student. Educating is a never ending process.Read a lot.Clip articles and create a fileDiscuss your ideas with other peopleJoin associations and attend meetingsStudy other countries and their culture and then travel there.Develop listening skills

Step ii. Investigation. Develop an understanding of the problem or decision.

Step iii. Transformation. Viewing the similarities and differences in the information collected. Requires two types of thinking: convergent and divergent. Convergent thinking is the ability to see the similarities and connections among various data and events. Divergent thinking is the ability to see the differences among various data and events.

How to increase the ability to transform information to purposeful idea?

Evaluate parts of the situation and grasp the “big picture” . look for patterns.Rearrange the elements of the situation.Remember that several approaches might be successful.

Step iv. Incubation. Reflect on the information gathered. It occurs while the individual is away from the problem and is engage in an unrelated activity.

How to enhance the incubation phase of the creative process?Walk away from the situation.Take time to daydream.Relax and play regularly.Dream about the problem or opportunity..Work on the problem in a different environment.

Step v. Illumination. This occurs during the incubation stage. All the previous stages come together to produce the “Eureka factor”- the creation of the innovative idea.

Step vi. Verification. Validating the idea as accurate and useful. It may include experiments, running simulations, test marketing a product or service and others to verify if it will work or practical to implement.

TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING THE CREATIVE

PROCESS• Brainstorming- interaction of people

to produce imaginative ideas.

Guidelines for a successful brainstorming:

Keep the group small.Have a well-defined problem.Limit the session to 40-60 minutes.

Appoint someone to be the recorder.

Use a seating pattern.Encourage all ideas from the

team.Establish a goal of quantity

of ideas over quality of ideas.

Forbid evaluation or criticism of any idea during brainstorming session.

Encourage participants to use “idea hitchhiking”.

::

• Mind-mapping- graphical technique that encourages thinking on both sides of the brain.

Mind-mapping processWrite down or sketch the

picture that symbolizes the problem in the center of the blank page.

Write down every idea that comes into your mind.

Don’t try to force creativity when the flow of ideas slows to trickle.

Allow your mind to rest for a few minutes and then begin to integrate the ideas on the page into a mind map.

• Rapid Prototyping- process of creating a model of an idea to see its flaws and to make improvements in the design.

3 principles of rapid prototyping: Rough Rapid Right