CHAPTER 2

Inside the Entrepreneurial Mind:

From Ideas to Reality

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 Creativity and Innovation
 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.

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 Creativity—A necessity for survival
• In intensely competitive environment and global
economy, creativity is not only an important
source for building a competitive advantage, but
it is also a necessity for survival.
• An environment in which staying in a leadership
position requires constant creativity, innovation,
and entrepreneurship.
• A company that has achieved a leadership
position in an industry but they need creatively
to maintain its balance on as number one. 2-3
 Barriers to Creativity

• Searching for the one “right” answer

• Focusing on “being logical”
• Blindly following the rules
• Constantly being practical

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 Barriers to Creativity
• Becoming overly specialized
• Avoiding ambiguity
• Fearing looking foolish
• Fearing mistakes and failure
• Believing that “I’m not creative”

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 Tips for Enhancing Organizational
Creativity
• Include creativity as a core company value
• Embrace diversity
• Expect creativity
• Expect and tolerate failure
• Create an organizational structure that
nourishes creativity

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 Tips for Enhancing Organizational
Creativity
(continued)

• Encourage curiosity
• View problems as opportunities
• Provide creativity training
• Provide support
• Develop a procedure for capturing ideas

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 Tips for Enhancing Organizational
Creativity

• Talk and interact with customers

• Look for uses for your company’s products or
services in other markets
• Reward creativity
• Model creative behavior

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 Tips for Enhancing
Individual Creativity
• Allow yourself to be creative
• Give your mind fresh input every day
• Observe the products and services
of other companies, especially
those in completely different markets
• Recognize the creative power of mistakes
• Notice what is missing

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 Tips for Enhancing
Individual Creativity

• Keep a journal to record your thoughts and

ideas
• Listen to other people
• Listen to customers
• Talk to a child
• Do something ordinary in an unusual way

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Tips for Enhancing Individual Creativity

• Keep a toy box in your office

• Do not throw away seeming “bad” ideas
• Read books on stimulating creativity or take a
class on creativity
• Take some time off
• Be persistent

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 The Creative Process

Preparation Investigation Transformation

Incubation Illumination Verification

Implementation

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 Step 1-Preparation
This step involves getting the mind ready for creative
thinking. Preparation might include a formal
education, on-the-job training , work experience, and
taking advantage of other learning opportunities.
How can you prepare your mind for creative
thinking?
 Adopt the attitude of a lifelong student. Realize that
educating yourself is a never ending process.
 Read a lot and not just in your field of expertise.
Reading books, magazines, and papers covering a
variety of subject matter is a great way to motivate
your creativity.

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 Clip articles of interest to you and create a file for
them. Over time, you will build a customized
encyclopedia of information from which to draw
ideas and inspiration.
 Take time to discuss your ideas with other people,
including those who know little about it, as well as
experts in the field. Sometimes, the apparently
simple questions an “unknowledgeable” person asks
lead to new discoveries and to new approaches to an
old problem.

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 Step-2 Investigation
This step requires one to develop a solid
understanding of the problem, situation, or decision
at hand. To create new ideas and concepts in a
particular field , an individual first must study the
problem and understand its basic components.

Step-3 Transformation
Transformation involves viewing the similarities
and the differences among the information
collected. This phase requires two types of
thinking : convergent and divergent.
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Convergent thinking:
Convergent thinking is the ability to see the
similarities and the connections among various and
often diverse data and events.
Divergent thinking:
Divergent thinking the ability to see the differences
among various data and events.

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 Step-4 Incubation
The subconscious needs time to reflect on the
information collected. To an observer, this phase of the
creative process would be quite boring; it looks as
though nothing is happening! In fact, during this phase, it
may appear that the creative person is loafing.
Incubation occurs while the individual is away from the
problem, often engaging in some totally unrelated
activity. How can you enhance the incubation phase of
the creative process?
 Walk away from the situation.
 Take the time to daydream.
 Relax —and play—regularly.

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 Step-5 Illumination
• The illumination stage is when an idea first occurs
to you. This can occur at an unexpected time or
place. For example, an idea might occur to you
while you’re consciously working on something
else, relaxing, eating, or even sleeping. It’s a good
idea to keep a small notepad with you so you can
write down your ideas as you have them, and then
consider them at a more convenient time.

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 Step-6 Verification
At this phase, appropriate questions to ask include the
following:
 Is it really a better solution to a particular problem or
opportunity?
 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 idea fit into our core
competencies?
 How much will it cost to produce or to provide?

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 Step-7 Implementation
The focus of this step is to transform the idea into
reality. Plenty of people come up with creative idea for
promising new products or services, but most never take
them beyond the idea stage.

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 Techniques for Improving
the Creative Process

Brainstorming:
The goal is to create a large quantity of
novel and imaginative ideas.

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 Brainstorming Guidelines
• Use a seating pattern that encourages
interaction.
• Encourage all ideas from the team.
• Shoot for quantity of ideas over quality of ideas.
• Forbid criticism.

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