Inside the Entrepreneurial Mind:

From Ideas to Reality

 ‘We now stand on the threshold of a new age - the age
of revolution. In our minds, we know the new age has
already arrived: in our bellies, we’re not sure we like it.
For we know it is going to be an age of upheaval, of
tumult, of fortunes made and unmade at head-snapping
speed. For change has changed. No longer is it additive.
No longer does it move in a straight line. In the twenty
first century, change is discontinuous, abrupt, seditious.’

Gary Hamel
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.

 *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.
 *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

 Paris Once Bird
in the in a in the
the Spring Time a lifetime the hand
 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?”
Creative

Thinking
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 heart of the

creative process.

Try this simple test. Click here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CEr2GfGilw
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”.

 BARRIERS
TO
CREATIVITY
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: intuition

3. 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.
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.
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”
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.
 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
colleagues doing the same)
 ENHANCING
INDIVIDUAL CREATIVIY
 ALLOW YOURSELF
TO 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 creative
is the first step toward establishing a
pattern of creative thinking
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
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.
The people who succeed will be
those with the boldness to do
something in a totally different
way.

Rachel Elnough
 Creativity
• Creativity is a right brain activity
• It involves lateral as opposed to vertical
thinking.
• It is intuitive, imaginative and rule breaking
• It requires interpersonal and emotional
skills and is people focused.
 Creative v Logical Thinking
Left brain Creative Logical Right brain
Seeks questions Seeks answers
Diverges Converges
Explores different views Asserts best or right view
Restructures Uses existing structure
Seeks ways an idea might Says when an idea will not
help work
Welcomes discontinuous Uses logical steps
leaps
Welcomes chance intrusions Focuses on what is relevant
Open ended Closed
 Creative Types
(Majaro)
• Conceptual fluency They are able to produce many ideas
• Mental flexibility They are adept at lateral thinking.
• Originality They produce atypical responses to problems
• Suspension of judgement They do not analyse too
quickly
• Impulsive They act impulsively to an idea, expressing
their ‘gut-feel’
• Anti authority They are always willing to challenge
authority
• Tolerance They have a high tolerance threshold towards
the ideas of others
 Sources of Commercial Ideas
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
• Awareness and ideas • Distributors and
• Research and agents
development • Competitors
• Engineering • Suppliers
• Purchasing • Customers
• Production • Universities,
• Marketing and sales consultants,
exhibitions
Techniques to aid Creativity
• Brainstorming
• Analogy
• Attribute analysis
• Gap analysis
– Perceptual mapping
– Non-metric mapping
– Repertory grid
• 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”.
 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.
 We learned the importance of
ignoring conventional wisdom....It’s
fun to do things that people don’t
think are possible or likely. Its also
exciting to achieve the unexpected.

Michael Dell