Chapter: 4
Inside the Entrepreneurship Mind: From Idea to
Reality
Source of new ide as – Creativity, inn ovation, and
entrepreneurship – Creativity-Essential to survival –
creative thinking – Barriers to creativity – How to enhance
creativity – the creative process – Techniques for improving
the creative process.
SOURCES OF NEW IDEAS
A. Consumers
B. Existing Products
and Services
C. Distribution Channels
D. Government
E. Research and
Development 2
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Inside the Entrepreneurial
Mind: From Ideas to Reality
Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
Creativity – the ability to develop new ideas and to
discover new ways of looking at problems and
opportunities; thinking new things.
Innovation – the ability to apply creative solutions to
problems or opportunities to enhance or to enrich
people’s lives; doing new things.
Entrepreneurship – the result of a disciplined, systematic
process of applying creativity and innovation to the
needs and opportunities in the marketplace.
Entrepreneurs connect their creative ideas with the
purposeful action and structure of a business.
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Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
Failure: Just Part of the Creative Process!
• For every 3,000 new product ideas:
• Four make it to the development stage.
• Two are actually launched.
• One becomes a success in the market.
• On average, new products account for 40 percent of
companies’ sales!!
• Creativity is an important source for building a
competitive advantage.
Creativity- Essential to survival
• Creativity is an important source for building a
competitive advantage and for survival.
• Making the inferential leap from what has worked in
the past to what will work today (or in the future)
requires entrepreneurs to cast off their limiting
assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors and to develop
new insights into the relationship among resources,
needs, and values.
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Creative Thinking:
• Two sides of Brain
Right-Brained
Left-Brained
Creative Thinking:
Left-Brain
• Left–brained vertical thinking is narrowly focused
and systematic, proceeding in a highly logical
fashion from one point to the next.
• Left–brain thinking is guided by a linear, vertical
thought process progressing from one logical
conclusion to the next.
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Creative Thinking:
Right-Brain
• Right–brained lateral thinking is somewhat
unconventional, unsystematic, and relies on
kaleidoscope/lateral thinking.
• This describes the process of considering a problem
from all sides and jumping into it at different points.
Creative Thinking:
Right-Brained, Creative Thinkers
Those who have learned to develop their right–brained thinking skills
tend to:
• Always ask, “Is there a better way?”
• Challenge custom, routine, and tradition.
• Are reflective.
• Are prolific thinkers.
• Play mental games.
• Realize the likelihood of more right answers.
• See mistakes as pit stops on the way to success.
• See problems as springboards for new ideas.
• Relate seemingly unrelated ideas to a problem.
• Have “helicopter skills.”
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5
Creative Thinking:
Left-Brained or Right-Brained?
• Entrepreneurship requires both left-and right-brained
thinking.
• Right-brained thinking draws on divergent reasoning, the
ability to create a multitude of original, diverse ideas.
• Left-brained thinking counts on convergent reasoning, the
ability to evaluate multiple ideas and to choose the best
solution to a problem.
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Barriers to Creativity
1. Searching for the one “right” answer
2. Focusing on “being logical”
3. Blindly following the rules
4. Constantly being practical
5. Viewing play as frivolous
6. Becoming overly specialized
7. Avoiding ambiguity
8. Looking foolish
9. Fearing mistakes and failure
10. Believing that “I’m not creative”
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6
10 Keys to Business Innovation
1. Business model
2. Networks and alliances
3. Organizational structure
4. Core process
5. Product or service performance
6. Product system
7. Service
8. Channel
9. Brand
10. Customer Experience.
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Questions to Spur the Imagination
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7
How to Enhance Creativity
1. Enhancing Organizational Creativity
2. Enhancing Individual Creativity
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How to Enhance Creativity
q Enhancing Organizational Creativity
Entrepreneurs can stimulate their own creativity and encourage it
among workers by
• Include creativity as a core company value and make it an Integral
part of the company’s culture
• Hire for creativity
• Establish an organizational structure that nourishes creativity
• Embrace diversity
• Expect creativity
• Expect failure and learn from it
• Incorporate fun into the work environment
• Encourage curiosity
• Design a work space that encourages creativity
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8
How to Enhance Creativity
q Enhancing Organizational Creativity
• View problems as opportunities
• Provide creativity training
• Eliminate bureaucratic obstacles and provide the support necessary for
innovation
• Develop a procedure for capturing ideas
• Talk with customers—or, better yet, interact with them
• Monitor emerging trends and identify ways your company can capitalize on them
• Look for uses for your company’s products or services in other markets
• Reward creativity
• Model creative behavior
• Don’t forget about business model innovation
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How to Enhance Creativity
q Enhancing Individual Creativity
Entrepreneurs can use the following techniques to enhance
their own creativity:
• Allow yourself to be creative
• Forget the ‘Rules’
• Give your mind fresh input every day
• Take up a hobby
• Travel and Observe
• Observe the products and services of those companies,
especially those in completely different markets
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9
How to Enhance Creativity
q Enhancing Individual Creativity
• Recognize the creative power of mistakes and
accidents
• Notice what is missing
• Look for ways to turn trash into treasures
• Keep a journal handy to record your thoughts and ideas
• Listen to other people
• Listen to customers
• Get adequate sleep
• Watch a movie
• Talk to a child
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How to Enhance Creativity
q Enhancing Individual Creativity
• Do something ordinary in an usual way
• Keep a toy box in your office
• Take note of your ‘pain points’
• Do not throw away seemingly ‘bad’ ideas
• Collaborate with others
• Read books on stimulating creativity or take a class
on creativity
• Doodle
• Take some time off
• Be persistent (determined)
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10
The Creative Process
Preparation Investigation Transformation
Incubation Illumination Verification
Implementation
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The Creative Process
Preparation Investigation Transformation
Incubation Illumination Verification
Implementation
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The Creative Process: Preparation
• How can you prepare your mind for creative thinking?
• Adopt the attitude of a lifelong student.
• Read …a lot…and not just in your field of expertise.
• Clip articles of interest to you and file them.
• Take time to discuss your ideas with other people.
• Join professional or trade associations and attend their
meetings.
• Study other countries and their cultures and travel.
• Develop your listening skills.
• Eliminate creative distractions.
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The Creative Process
Preparation Investigation Transformation
Incubation Illumination Verification
Implementation
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The Creative Process
Preparation Investigation Transformation
Incubation Illumination Verification
Implementation
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The Creative Process: Transformation
• Involves viewing both the similarities and the
differences among the information collected.
• Two types of thinking required:
• Convergent – the ability to see the similarities and the
connections among various and often diverse data and
events.
• Divergent – the ability to see the differences among
various data and events.
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13
The Creative Process: Transformation
• How can you transform information into
purposeful ideas?
• Evaluate the parts of the situation several
times, trying to grasp the “big picture”.
• Rearrange the elements of the situation.
• Use synectics, taking two seeming
nonsensical ideas and combining them.
• Remember that several approaches can be
successful. If one fails, jump to another.
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The Creative Process
Preparation Investigation Transformation
Incubation Illumination Verification
Implementation
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The Creative Process: Incubation
• How can you enhance the incubation phase of the
creative process, letting ideas marinate in your
mind?
• Walk away from the situation.
• Take the time to daydream.
• Relax – and play – regularly.
• Dream about the problem or opportunity.
• Work on it in a different environment.
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The Creative Process
Preparation Investigation Transformation
Incubation Illumination Verification
Implementation
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The Creative Process
Preparation Investigation Transformation
Incubation Illumination Verification
Implementation
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The Creative Process: Verification
• Validate the idea as accurate and useful.
• Is it really a better solution?
• Will it work?
• Is there a need for it?
• If so, what is the best application of this idea in the
marketplace?
• Does this product or service fit into our core
competencies?
• How much will it cost to produce or to provide?
• Can we sell it at a reasonable price?
• Will people buy it?
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The Creative Process
Preparation Investigation Transformation
Incubation Illumination Verification
Implementation
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Techniques for Improving the Creative Process
n Brainstorming
Goal is to create a large quantity of novel and imaginative
ideas.
n Mind-mapping
A graphical technique that encourages thinking on both sides
of the brain, visually displays relationships among ideas, and
improves the ability to see a problem from many sides.
n Force-Field Analysis
n Rapid prototyping
Transforming an idea into an actual model that will
point out flaws and lead to design improvements. 34
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Brainstorming
• Brainstorming is a process in which a small group of
people interact with very little structure with the
goal of producing a large quantity of novel and
imaginative ideas.
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Brainstorming Guidelines
• Keep the group small – “Two pizza rule.”
• Make the group as diverse as possible.
• Encourage participants to engage in some type of
aerobic exercise before the session.
• Ignore company rank and department affiliation.
• Give the group a well-defined problem.
• Limit the session to 40 to 60 minutes.
• Take a field trip.
• Appoint a recorder.
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Brainstorming Guidelines
• Use a seating pattern that encourages interaction.
• Throw logic out the window.
• Encourage all ideas from the team.
• Shoot for quantity of ideas over quality of ideas.
• Forbid criticism.
• Encourage idea “hitch-hiking.”
• Dare to imagine the unreasonable.
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Mind Mapping
• The mind-mapping process:
o Start by writing down or sketching a picture symbolizing the
problem or area of focus in the center of a large blank page.
o Write down every idea that comes into your mind,
connecting each idea to the central picture or words with a
line.
o When the flow of ideas slows to a trickle, stop!
o Allow your mind to rest for a few minutes and then begin to
integrate the ideas on the page into a mind map.
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Mind Mapping
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Mind Mapping
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Mind Mapping
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Force-Field Analysis
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Force-Field Analysis
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Rapid Prototyping
Rapid Prototyping
the process of creating a model of an idea, enabling an
entrepreneur to discover flaws in the idea and to make
improvements in the design.
3 Rs= rough, rapid, and right.
Right: Building lots of small models focusing the problems to
be solved with an idea.
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