Imagination in Entrepreneurship
Explain the limitations of the 'left-brain versus right-brain' metaphor. What is your Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument preference pattern? How does it strengthen your creativity? What are your blind spots? What is meant by 'whole-brain thinking' or a 'whole brain approach'?
"Left-Brain" and "Right-Brain" thinking limits us because each individual has portions of their thinking style located in each side. No one person is strictly left or right "brained." My HBDI is Blue: 2 Green: 1 Red: 1 Yellow: 2 Since my green segment is so strong, it showcases my love of planning and organization. In regards to creativity, I am capable of turning an idea into a reality through a process. While my organization helps me expand ideas, it often limits me in cultivating new ideas. I tend to limit by creativity if an idea follows a process that I do not like or especially if it does not have an idea. Whole-brain thinking encourages one to utilize their strengths in all brain quadrants when thinking and making decisions. It also encourages the user to be aware of their weaknesses so they can either improve them or take note of them when making decisions.
What is the relationship between affect and creativity? Affect and innovation? What did the study by Baron and Tang (an assigned reading) indicate concerning these relationships?
In Barons study it states that positive affect is positively associated with creativity, and creativity is positively related to both number of innovations and radicalness of these innovations.
Describe the role of playfulness in heightening your own creativity. Are you playful? How might you develop your playfulness, especially when working in a serious corporate environment?
Do things that you enjoy so your thinking process can have that influence. GOOGLE- 20% of time can be spent on other projects in order to EVENTUALLY benefit the company.
In an exercise performed in class, everyone was asked to play the "ultimatum game." (One person recommends a division of $100 and the other person can accept or reject this division.) What important fact about the impact (and importance) of affect did this exercise illustrate? EMOTION
Feelings play a large part of your decisions, if you feel like you are getting unfair treatment compared to others you may not take it. Even though it's a better option than one previous to comparing or letting your feelings involved.
Use Lewin's Forced Field Analysis to explain how you could come up with a way to write a song that might be recorded by a best-selling artist. Use seven criteria.
- Better ID your challenge, Carefully assess the relevant factors, ID strengths you can maximize, ID your weaknesses to minimize, Add more strengths - Write best-selling song Write horrible song taste in music Sense of rhythm Ear for notes Lack of rhyme Creativity Ability to tell a story Love a music - Mark which side it goes and then write and X on the line, after all X's are listed find and average.
How does one go about asking creative questions before trying to produce creative answers? Assume you are one of the many student-oriented bars in Stillwater trying to survive. Apply this concept to the challenge of competitive survival and growth.
- Good questions: surprising, provocative, emanate from skewed vantage points, open new routes to a subject, return to the underlying basics -Dow Jones Bar in Barcelona
Explain the principle of 'creative abrasion.' How can abrasion or conflict be a good thing? What are some ground rules for making it work?
- It allows people to simplify problems to the core, reduce unneeded "baggage" - Conditions: Clarity of goals, immediate feedback, balance between challenges and skills, action and awareness are merged, avoiding distractions, no worry of failure, self-consciousness disappears. "A means of harnessing the frictional energies released between distinct perspectives and work styles to generate new directions and novel solutions."
What are the two phases of mind mapping? What are the key 'rules' do you use when developing a mind map? Explain how a mind map can lead to a more creative solution to a problem or challenge.
- Phase 1: Generative - central theme is used as a stimulus to generate more concepts, ideas and things. - Phase 2: Exploratory - explore the map for possible clusters connections and associations - Mind mapping can allow someone to finally connect two ideas which were in the mind, but until they were visual they couldn't be connected. Makes you shift back and forth between parts and a whole, also allows you to view problems in a different way
Creativity typically requires a stimulus. Provide an example of how each of the following might be used if you were trying to find a way to meet President Obama in person: unrelated stimulus to the task. physical stimulus. 180 thinking / + or - thinking. take over time. great places.
- Unrelated stimulus to the task - How to make a Red Dirt Country album - Physical stimulus - Make an ink/pen that doesn't smear or mark people when writing. - 180 thinking / - or + thinking: I either go to one of his speeches or I start to date his daughter. "How can I meet him?" - Take over time: If Russia took over America then Obama would be just another citizen and I could meet him then. "Knock him down to my level." - Great places: reading a book; teach Obama how to relax and enjoy life as I do when I read.
Where do the creative blocks come into play in terms of the creative process? Explain the ten blocks discussed in class. Provide an example where you have to come up with a creative solution to something, and how each of the blocks might come into the picture.
1) "the right answer" 2) "that's not logical" 3) "be practical 4) "follow the rules" 5) "avoid ambiguity" 6) "to err is wrong" 7) "play is frivolous" 8) "that's not my area" 9) "don't be foolish" 10) "I'm not creative"
We have reviewed the stages in the entrepreneurial process. Identify an example of a role for creativity in each of these six stages.
1) Identify an opportunity 2) Develop the concept 3) Asses the needed resources 4) Acquire the necessary resources 5) Implement and manage 6) Grow and harvest Role of creativity is: Dreaming and doing. Imagining and implementing. Guerilla skills resource leveraging, risk management.
What makes something more creative or less creative than something else? Hence, why is this painting more creative than that painting, or this solution to the problem of pollution more creative than that solution? Introduce our three criteria, explain each, and discuss how they combine to make something more creative.
1) New and different 2) Value created for a user 3) Reason to believe
Think about creativity as a process, tie in the activities and psychological styles that might dominate a particular stage. Also, tie in the roles of explorer, artist, judge and warrior during the process.
1-Explorer 2-Judge 3-Artist 4-Warrior Psychological styles: Interest: intuition and emotion Preparation: Details and planning Incubation: Intuition Illumination: Intuition Verification: Details and rationality Exploitation: Details and rationality
Affect ⎯ our feelings, emotions, and moods ⎯ has been found to strongly influence both behavior and cognition. Briefly describe two ways in which affect can play an important role in entrepreneurship.
1. Acquiring human and financial resources, entrepreneurs are more enthusiastic allowing networking to be easier and have a more positive network 2. Responding well to dynamic environments, being able to make rapid "good enough" decisions and having a high tolerance to stress
In the reading assignment by Ariely ("Predictably Irrational"), the power effects of cognitive anchoring were discussed. In addition, these effects were demonstrated in class in an exercise involving your social security number. What is cognitive anchoring, and how can it influence our thinking?
An anchor is a number (usually a price) that serves as the basis for all rational price setting and accepting. In the exercise with our social security numbers, those of us with a higher selection of numbers were more willing to spend more money on the same item that a person with a lower selection of numbers from their social security number would be willing to spend.
Explain convergent and divergent thinking. How does engaging in both of these approaches strengthen solutions, making them more creative?
Convergence- Focus on essential facts and details. Screen for relevance. Simplifying problems into their essence. Reassembly and reduction. Deductive thinking. ZOOM IN Divergence- Break down problem into smaller bits. Cast wide net when surching for solutions. Ability to switch perspectives. Ability to make unusual associations. Reach into other disciplines. Have full range of information. One can see paters, find associations, and connect the dots. If you use both of these it allows you to approach problems from different viewpoints and come up with the best solution.
What is counterfactual thinking and how is it related to creativity-and entrepreneurship?
Counterfactual Thinking: "what might have been." Especially in entrepreneurship, things can go wrong. It may seem easy to fantasize about the multimillion-dollar corporation that our idea could have blossomed in to, and it is even easier to blame other for our failures. By blaming and day-dreaming, we do not learn from our mistakes.
Why is it useful to approach creativity as a process? Outline the key steps or stages in the process. What are some likely developments in each stage?
Creativity is a process because ideas must be evaluated. 1) Preperation- 2) Frustration-typical stopping point 3) Incubation- 4) Illumination- 5) elaboration
Define creativity. How does it differ from innovation and entrepreneurship? What is the relationship among the three?
Creativity is imagination, ingenuity, and insight. The act of relating previously unrelated things. The application of a person's mental ability and curiosity to discover something new. Innovation is the application of creativity in order to develop new things. Entrepreneurship is the process of creating value by bringing together a unique combination of resources to exploit and opportunity. You must first have creativity and innovation in order to master entrepreneurship. 3 i's: imagination ingenuity insight
Define Ludicity. With all other things being equal, how does a more ludic person compare to another person who is less ludic?
Lucidity- the ability to see things rationally or clearly. It is the quality of an individual to be easily understood or logical.
What is an 'opportunity'? From where do opportunities come? How can one get better at finding or recognizing opportunity?
Opportunity- an avenue in which an individual can take that has not previously been taken toward a desired goal or success. It is a means of creating value from something that has not been done. Creativity stems from technology, markets, demographics, or government policy. Interpersonal contact is a large factor in determining how well we are able to seek and find opportunity. The ability to reach others is huge regarding the success of a potential venture and idea.
What is Alex Osborn's SCAMPER technique? Assume you are a hardware store trying to prosper after a Horne Depot has just opened in your small town. How might SCAMPER help you produce a creative solution?
S: substitute C: combine A: adapt M: magnify/modify P: put to other uses E: eliminate R: Rearrange/ reverse -Scamper would allow you to possibly combine with another store that would also be effected by the Home Depot and find away to offer something that the Home Depot wouldn't compete with.
Our cognitive systems are incredibly impressive-but also amazingly limited in important ways. Describe two of these limitations.
While our cognitive systems are impressive, they are also plagued by cognitive biases. Two examples of these biases: 1. Magical Thinking: Assuming that our events or processes that are really unrelated can influence each other. 2. Self-Serving Bias: "You can do no right. I can do no wrong." 3.Illusion of control: Belief that you are controlling everything 4. Sense of Infallibility: Belief that one cannot make mistakes
Creativity applies in all aspects of life. Explain how it applies to at least five arenas in the workplace.
• Idea creativity- thinking up a new idea or concept, such as an idea for a new product or service or a way to solve a problem • Communication and material creativity- Inventing and building a tangible object such as a product, advertisement, report, or photograph. • Organization creativity- organizing people or project, and coming up with a new organizational for or approach to structuring things. • Relationship creativity- Innovating approach to achieving collaboration, cooperation, and a win-win relationship with others. • Event creativity- producing an event or occasion such as an awards ceremony, team outing, or annual meeting. Finding a way to bring two opponents together. Also encompasses décor, ways in which people are involved, sequence of happenings, background, and so forth. • Spontaneous creativity- Acting in a spontaneous of spur of the moment manner. Such as coming up with a witty response, an off the cuff speech, a quick way to setting a dispute, or an innovative appeal to close a sale.
