LOOKING THROUGH THE LENS OF POTENTIAL : LESSONS FROM A VISUAL

ARTIST
   Launching a new venture is a creative act, and challenges faced by passionate entrepreneurs
run parallel in many ways to the work of professional artists. Like entrepreneurs, artists give
shape and life to new ideas through processes of experimentation and discovery. I first met
Shaun Cassidy as part of an entrepreneurial session at the Innovation Institute Shaun is an artist
leader with the Institute, a professor of sculpture at Winthrop University, and an internationally
recognized sculptor and painter. His creative process echoes my own founding experience and
that of many successful entrepreneurs I have observed and studied. 
    Shaun tells the story of how his idea for an acclaimed public work started with a mistake.
Working on a commissioned sculpture for a beer company during an art residency program in
New York in 2005, he spilled wet concrete on an old sweater that had been a gift from his wife.
In an effort to save the sweater, he let the concrete dry. 
     A year later, Shaun was awarded a commission to do a major pub- lic art project, a sculpture
in a Charlotte park. The city sponsors wanted something highly durable and vandal proof to be
built on a low budget. If you trust the process and you let the process play out long enough—
sometimes over years—your solutions to problems will be more in- novative because you’ve got
a richer pool from which to draw. 
    Of the many lessons from Shaun Cassidy’s work and teaching, here are some that are
especially relevant for new venture founders:
 Allow solutions to come through a process. Shaun says that his conceiving is always
the result of an iterative process. “
 Look through the lens of potential instead of rejection. Shaun works with leaders to
help them “develop a lens that will allow them to see the potential in almost anything
instead of reject- ing it instantly
 Don’ t settle too soon. Shaun believes that too many people are content with early ideas,
rather than pushing themselves to higher standards. 
 Push for improvement until the very end. Early in his career, just before graduate
school in England, Shaun worked for Sir Anthony Caro, a legendary abstract sculptor,
who would sometimes force radical changes at the last possible moment.
Use disruption as a positive force. I think that I learned more about myself on that
residency, and made probably the best work of my life because of that disruption.”