UNIT 2 °Creativity – A Necessity for Survival°

 creativity is an important source to

INSIDE THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MIND:
build a competitive advantage
FROM IDEAS TO REALITY  it is also necessary to survive in a
fiercely competitive global economy.
 to develop creative solutions to modern
● Lesson 1. Creativity, Innovation, and problems, entrepreneurs should go
Entrepreneurship ● beyond what has worked in the past.
 be on guard against traditional
Creativity and Innovation is applied to solve
assumptions and perspectives about
problems people face everyday and to give
opportunities in the industry. how things are supposed to be.
 they must change their perspectives,
Creativity – is the ability to generate something looking at the world in new and
from nothing. It utilizes new ideas to discover different ways.
new ways of looking at problems and  Self-imposed mental constraints and
opportunities. other paradigms people build over time
will kill creativity.
Innovation – is the ability to apply creative
 A paradigm is a preconceived
solutions to problems or produce opportunities
idea of what the world is, what
to enrich the lives of people.
it should be like, and how it
Having a great idea is not enough, thus turning should operate.
the idea into a tangible product, service or  Being able to maintain a creative
business venture is the first step for an mindset, not being satisfied with the
entrepreneur to succeed. current solution to the problem but
Entrepreneurship – is the result of applying seeks for improvement, will help an
creativity and innovation to the needs and entrepreneur survive in the competing
opportunities in the marketplace in a disciplined market.
and systematic process. °Can Creativity Be Learned? °
– It involves satisfying the By overcoming paradigms and by
needs of a customer or solving their problems suspending conventional thinking long
by applying new ideas and new insights to enough to consider new and different
create a product or a service. alternatives, one can be creative.
In order to achieve successful entrepreneurship, a
consistent effort on applying creative ideas for a
purpose in the marketplace should be done.
°Creative Thinking°

The human brain develops asymmetrically, and

each hemisphere tends to specialize in certain
functions. The hemispheres are divided into left
and right. Left-brained individuals are usually
guided by linear and vertical thinking. They
usually handle language, logic, and symbols
much better. They also process information in a
step-by-step fashion. Meanwhile, right-brained
individuals are often referred to as “Creative
Thinkers”.

The following are the qualities of a right-brained

individuals:

 Always ask, “Is there a better way?”

 Challenge custom, routine, and
tradition
 Reflective
 Play logical games
 Has a perspective that there may be
more than one “right” answer
 Consider mistakes as pit stops on the
way to success
 Has the ability to relate unrelated ideas
to a problem

In entrepreneurship, both the left and right

hemispheres of the brain are used. The right-
brained thinking draws in divergent reasoning,
the ability to create a multitude of original
diverse ideas. While the left-brained thinking
counts on convergent reasoning, the ability to
evaluate multiple ideas and to choose the best
solution to a problem.
● Lesson 2. How to Enhance Individual ideas and implementing them.
Creativity and its Barriers ● However, in the early imaginative
phases of the process, logical thinking
°Enhancing Individual Creativity°
can restrict creativity. Focusing too
Just as entrepreneurs can cultivate an much effort on being logical also
environment of creativity by using their own discourages the use of one of the
techniques. These are some of the as follows: mind’s most powerful
creations: intuition.
 Allow yourself to be creative. 3. Blindly following the rules
 Give your mind fresh input every day. - Sometimes, creativity depends on our
 Observe the products and services of ability to break the existing rules so
other companies, especially those in
that we can see new ways of doing
completely different markets.
things.
 Recognize the creative power of
4. Constantly being practical
mistakes.
 Notice what is missing. - Suspending practicality for a while
 Keep a journal handy to record your frees the mind to consider creative
thoughts and ideas. solutions that otherwise might never
 Listen to other people. arise.
 Listen to customers. 5. Viewing play as frivolous
 Talk to a child. - A playful attitude is fundamental to
 Do something ordinary in an unusual creative thinking.
way. 6. Becoming overly specialized
 Do not throw away seemingly bad - Creative thinkers tend to be
ideas. “explorers,” searching for ideas outside
 Read books on stimulating creativity or
their areas of specialty.
take a class on creativity.
7. Avoiding ambiguity
 Take some time off
 Be persistent. Persistence and “don’t - Ambiguity can be a powerful creative
quit” attitude for entrepreneurs is a stimulus; it encourages us to “think
 secret for success. something different.” Avoiding it will
not let us that something should be
°Barriers to Creativity° identified in a situation.
8. Fearing looking foolish
Among the limitless barriers to creativity, in his - New ideas rarely are born in a
book, A Whack on the Side of the Head, Roger conforming environment.
von Oech stated 10 “mental locks” that limit an 9. Fearing mistakes and failure
individual’s creativity: - Creative people realize that trying
1. Searching for the one “right” answer something new often leads to failure;
- ingrained in most educational systems however, they do not see failure as an
is the assumption that there is one end. It represents a learning experience
“right” answer to a problem. on the way to success.
2. Focus on “being logical” 10. Believing that “I’m not creative”
- Logic is a valuable part of the creative - A person who believes he or she is not
process, especially when evaluating creative will, in all likelihood, behave
 that way and will make that belief come phase of the creative process would be quite
true. boring; it looks as though nothing is happening.
Incubation occurs while the individual is away
from the problem, often engaging in some
● Lesson 3. Creative Process and Techniques totally unrelated activity.
for Improving ●
Step 5: Illumination
The following steps are what a Creative Process
- This phase of the creative process occurs at
will take:
some point during the incubation stage when a
Step 1: Preparation spontaneous breakthrough causes “the light
bulb to go on”. It takes place after five minutes
- This step involves getting the mind ready for or five years. In the illumination stage, all the
creative thinking. Preparation might include a previous stages come to produce the ‘’Eureka
formal education, on-the job training, work factor’’ - the creation of the innovative idea.
experience, and taking advantage of other
learning opportunities. Step 6: Verification

Step 2: Investigation - Validating the idea as accurate and useful, for

entrepreneurs, may include conducting
- This step requires developing a solid experiments, running simulations, test
understanding of the problem or situation, marketing a product or service, establishing
decision on hand. To create new ideas and small-scale pilot programs and other activities
concepts in a particular field, an individual first designed to verify that the new idea will work
must study the problem and understand its and is practical to implement.
basic components.
- At this phase, appropriate questions to ask
Step 3: Transformation include the following:
- Transformation involves viewing the  Is it really a better solution to a
similarities and the differences in the particular problem or opportunity?
information collected. This phase requires two Sometimes an idea that appears to have
types of thinking: convergent thinking, and a bright future in the lab or on paper
divergent thinking. dims considerably when put to the test
of reality.
 Convergent Thinking  Will it work?
o The ability to see the similarities  Is there a need for it?
and the connections among  If so, what is the best application of this
various and often diverse data idea in the marketplace?
and events.  Does this product or service idea fit into
 Divergent Thinking our core competencies?
o The ability to see the  How much will it cost to produce or to
differences among various data provide?
and events.  Can we sell it at a reasonable price that
will produce adequate sales, profit, and
Step 4: Incubation return on investment for our business?
- The subconscious needs time to reflect on the Step 7: Implementation
information collected. To an observer, this
 - The focus of this step is to transform the
idea into reality. Plenty of people come up
with creative ideas for promising new
products, but most never take them beyond
the idea stage. What sets entrepreneurs
apart is that they act on their ideas.

°Techniques for Improving the Creative

Process°

Now that you’ve learned the process for

creative thinking, the following are the
techniques to improve the creative process:

 Brainstorming
- A creative process in which a small
group of people interact with very little
structure with a goal is to create a large
quantity of new and imaginative ideas.

- It should have an open, uninhibited

atmosphere that allows the members of
the group to “free-wheel” ideas.

 Mind-mapping
- It is an extension of brainstorming
- A graphical technique that encourages
thinking on both sides of the brain,
visually displays the various
relationships among ideas, and
improves the ability to view a problem
from many sides.
 Rapid prototyping
- Rapid prototyping transforms an idea
into an actual model will point out flaws
in the original idea and will lead to
improvements in its design.
- The three principles of rapid
prototyping are the three R’s: rough,
rapid, and right. Models do not have to
be perfect; in fact, in the early phases of
developing an idea, perfecting a model
usually is a waste of time. The key is to
make the model good enough to
determine what works and what does
not.