Where do innovation and creativity come from ? A major new study identified five key skills associated with innovative and creative entrepreneurs:
- Associating: Creative mind connect the dots to make unexpected connections. They combine pieces of what may seem disparate pieces of information to get innovative new ideas.
- Observing: innovative people are intense observers. By observing they get a deep understanding of how things work.
- Experimenting: innovation is a trial/error process. By experimenting innovators refine their ideas until they get it right.
- Questionning: We can be observing the world or experimenting, but if we have no questions in my mind, we are unlikely to get any observations or insights that we never saw or thought about.
- Networking: Innovators are intentional about finding diverse people who are just the opposites of who they are, that they talk to, to get ideas that seriously challenge their own. Creative and innovative entrepreneurs look for people who are completely different in terms of perspective and regularly discuss ideas and options with them “to get divergent viewpoints.”
Innovation is a habit and for innovative entrepreneurs it’s a way of life. It’s the fabric of who they are.
Authors of the study also point out that successful innovators “were driven by a fundamental bias against the status quo. They were absolutely uncomfortable with things being the way they are. They wanted to make things change … They wanted to change the world. And they’re going to risk failure in order to make that a reality.”
An advice from the authors of the study ? Start acting like a child again: “Not 100 per cent of the time, that would be absurd. We’re adults and we have to run businesses. But 20 per cent, 25 per cent of our time, act like a four-year-old again,” Gregersen told INSEAD Knowledge. “Because all these skills are what four-year-olds do. They ask thousands of questions: ‘Why?’ ‘Why not?’ This and that. They’re always asking those questions … They observe intensely and they’ll talk to just about anybody.”
Read the full article: The innovator’s DNA