"A major stimulant to creative thinking is focused questions"
- Brian Tracy
Every organization wants to be creative and innovative and every individual wants to be an entrepreneur at some point in their life. Creativity and innovation have become buzz words in the industry. Different people have different meanings for the words creativity and innovation and lot of people use them almost synonymously. Tina Seelig [1] has put the forward a framework (she calls Inventure Cycle) to explain how we can go from inspiration to implementation.
- Imagination is the ability to envision things that don't yet exist
- Creativity then is applying your imagination to solve a problem
- Innovation then is applying your creativity to come up with a unique solution
- Entrepreneurship then is applying our innovation to bring those ideas to life, to bring them to fruition and to the rest of the world
The Inventure Cycle
- Imagination
- Engaging - start somewhere, pay attention, see opportunities
- Envisioning things that would be different
- Creativity
- Motivation - find something that motivates us
- Experimentation - start experimenting in the areas that motivates us to pick something that might work
- Innovation
- Focus time and attention to learn everything about something that might work
- Reframing - looking at the problem from all different angles
- Entrepreneurship
- Persistence - essentially grit!
- Inspiring Others to join the team and invest
According to Tina Seelig [2], one can't bring ideas to life alone - we need a team. Every organization needs people to play the different roles identified in the Investure Cycle - imaginers, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, and people who are inspired to be part of the team.
Ed Catmull [3] talks about how to foster creative culture in large organizations: loosen the controls, accept risk, trust the team, let teams operate according to their own rules. clear the path for teams, etc.. It is very important to have a great team not a mediocre team: if you get the team right, chances are that they'll get the ideas right.
References
- From Inspiration to Implementation by Tina Seelig, Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Podcasts, October 15, 2014
- Stanford University's Entrepreneurship Corner, http://ecorner.stanford.edu/author/tina_seelig
- Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull, 2014
