ENTREPRENEURSHING AND ROLE OF STIMULATING CREATIVITY

Introduction

Hello Friends,

Welcome you in this session on Stimulating creativity in an enterprise. Friends, Enterpreneur is a

person who has creativity for starting and building up a venture. In today’s economic world, in the
previous sessions we have seen that entrepreneurship is considered the key factor toward
organizational and economic development. Entrepreneurs strive to create more opportunities in
industry, providing more employment options and ultimately having a positive impact on per
capital income, revenue generation, lifestyle, etc. One of the most important elements of
entrepreneurship is creativity. The entrepreneurial process starts with conception and refinement
of an idea, followed by implementation and management. At all stages of this process requires
creativity by entrepreneur.

This session gives an idea of definition of creativity, what are the characteristics of creative
persons? How creative thinking and motivation will help to the entrepreneur? What are the
different social as well as environmental factors which affect to the creativity and motivation? I
hope you will enjoy this unit

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the session are :

1. To explain the meaning of creativity
2. To make you understand the attributes of creative person
3. To explain the role of creativity in enterprenership
4. To make you identify important factors affecting creativity in an enterprise
5. To make you understand importance of managing creativity in organisation.

1. Definition of creativity:

Creativity is marked by the ability or power to create — to bring into existence, to invest with a
new form, to produce through imaginative skill, to make or bring into existence something new.
Carl Rodgers (psychologist) defines creativity as the emergence of a novel, relational product,
growing out of the uniqueness of the individual. Henry Miller (writer) defines creativity as the
occurrence of a composition which is both new and valuable.

2. Attributes of creative person:

Creative persons have some characteristics that differentiate them from other normal

According to well-known author Eevee attributes of creative persons are:

1. They can easily think of ways of solving a difficult situation. Creative minds also tend to see
difficulties as interesting challenges that stimulate their artistic thoughts.

2. When inspiration strikes them, they forget about everything else but their work. They tend to
get lost in time and forget to eat or sleep. Because not many things matter more than their
creativity put into action.

3. Creative minded people are usually open minded and free person. Rules restrict their artistic
nature and they feel pressured when there are boundaries they have to consider.

4. They hate being stuck in a routine. This is not surprising at all because after all, a creative mind
has to stay stimulated so that it can express itself. This is why they are always seeking for new
experiences and adventures.

5. Daydreaming takes a big portion of their day. They easily detach from their current
surroundings and fly away to a whole different world.

6. Creative people express themselves through their works. But they are also constantly seeking
for new methods of self-expression because there is never only one particular way to do this.

7. They notice small details. They are good at observing other people and their surroundings. They
 have a keen eye and all this is typical for them because they draw inspiration from all that is
around them.

8. Life is not easy. Everybody has times of success and times of failure. Creative people can fail 100
times but the most important thing is their persistence because they know in their heart what
they want from life.

9. They are good at viewing situations from different angles. They can observe a set of
circumstances objectively.

10. Most creative people are bad with numbers. They get lost and even bored when it comes to
math.

11. Even when their creativity is doubted to be something they can make a living from, their artistic
nature

SOCIAL FACTORS AFFECTING MOTIVATION AND CREATIVITY

Environmental Factors Affecting Creativity and Innovation

Creativity, invention, and innovation are driven by a series of little ahas. When the little ahas are stitched
together, they lead to innovative products, services, and business processes. Creative ideas are built on a
tapestry of other ideas and the little ahas are the basis for both incremental and radical innovation.
Although innovation and creativity can emerge in a variety of settings and situations, some environments
are more conducive to the creative process. In one large study, it was found that having a vision, being task-
oriented and engaging in external communication had a strong relationship to creativity and innovation.
Creative thinking and motivation. Two Types of thinking

Convergent thinking— consider all available information and arrive at the unique best possible
answer

Divergent thinking---involving multiple possible solutions to the problem under consideration.

According to Amabile (1987) orientation of motivation is both a trait and a state. As a trait,
motivation covers an inherent like or dislike of certain activities, due to personality, and previous
experiences; moreover, people tend to be more creative on things they enjoy.

As a state, motivation can be intrinsic or extrinsic. Traits tend to be relatively enduring, while states
are influenced more by social environment. Motivation is tremendously very important in creativity
because it is a drive to persevere at problem fulfilled if the individual (and his or her social support
is not there) is motivated to do so, and creative solutions are not found if the individual is not
motivated to apply his own mind
Why is it important for entrepreneur to be creative ???????

Here are a few good reasons why entrepreneurs need to be creative to be successful:

· Creativity fosters Innovation

When you create something and you’re attaching your name to it, you want to make sure that it not
just satisfies customer expectations, but also exceeds them. Although it may be difficult to see this
from the beginning, especially when your offering is still just an idea, things will get much clearer as
the consecutive steps unfold and the idea starts turning into a reality. This is when you will realize
the difference between invention and innovation.

An idea which is unique is an invention, but an idea which is unique as well as useful is an
innovation. In order to innovate, you need to be creative and look at the same thing differently. This
will help you merge usefulness into a unique idea.

· Creativity Leads to Higher Overall Success

We’re always told that our intelligence will see us through everything in life. However, it is not until
we mature that we realize that although intelligent thinking is a necessary quality to have, creative
thinking has an important role to play as well. However it is fact that most educational institutes
and businesses still stress more on intelligence than creativity. This could perhaps be because the
former is easier to measure and manage, whereas the latter can be difficult to spot.

It Encourages People to Think

We live in a world where creative problem solving is slowly but steadily turning out to be one of the
best ways to mitigate organizational issues. It works best when coupled with sharp, highly focused
and disciplined way of thinking.People often talk about two modes of thinking – convergent and
divergent. It is said that people can think in either of the two or both the modes.

Convergent thinking is extremely analytical and strives to arrive at one accurate solution to the
problem. Computer systems, accounting software and various other data sources are considered to
come to the solution. Most organizations are adept at this.

Divergent thinking, on the other hand, encourages creative ideas by exploring many plausible
solutions for the same problem. In order to ensure that the organization gets the best resolution, it
is important to combine both the modes of thinking by giving due attention to divergent pathways.

· Creativity helps in Transcend Boundaries

Most path-breaking discoveries are made when two or more disciplines collide. That’s why it is
essential that the boundaries set by disciplines blur and collisions take place.

Creative problem solving is great because it is actually able to connect two distinct areas or
expertise and enable you to extrapolate probable solutions from one field to an unrelated area.

Creativity helps in Increasing Productivity

Being creative entails disconnecting from the familiar and moving into uncharted, unfamiliar
territories, with an aim of discerning something unique and useful. It is, therefore, important that
not only the leader be creative, but his employees develop such skills as well.
To enable this, an entrepreneur needs to provide them with the time and the resources necessary to
discover innovative ideas and solutions to issues.

This makes for an extremely cost-effective way of increasing productivity. Creativity and
innovation within an organization have always been known to bring it on the path to success.

· It Can Help Exploit Employee Potential

By not encouraging their employees to be creative, organizations are essentially utilizing only half
of their potential. The good news is that employees are realizing that there is an ocean of
information and creative ideas that are dormant and untapped at all levels.

Tapping all this talent can involve anything – from improving processes, making them more
effective and profitable, solving performance-related issues, developing new financial strategies, or
innovating to stay ahead of the herd.

· It Can Be Developed

While most people used to believe that creativity is an intrinsic trait, it is now believed that
creativity is a renewable resource that can be tapped into anytime and be learned.

We’re all born with creative potential and thought process which can be developed and reinforced.
Inculcating new hobbies and skills is a great way to put your inherent creative skills to the test as
well as hone them. It is also an effective way to train your mind to think in a manner that leads to
creative thinking.

MANAGING CREATIVITY IN ORGANISATION

Managing creativity, attributes of creative person, motivating creativng person for achieving
organizational actions is an art that enhance and hinder creativity. Creativity in different
managerial responsibilities in a creative organization, different roles of managers leads to some
important sources for business ideas.

Creativity is the ability generates innovative ideas and converts them to reality. It basically involves
imaginative and original thinking and implementing that into reality. It is the ability to think and
design something new, solve problems in new and different ways and to give shape and abstract
idea in the mind base on an original, new or unconventional approach.

1. Organizational priorities and creativity:

Management can be defined as a way of achieving goals that adds the highest value. It’s
about being sufficiently organized to identify the right goals and the best means for
achieving organizational goal. To take a simple example, whenever any company sets
priorities for any task, company has to manage its time.
 Prioritizing means deciding which activities are most likely to achieve a specific goal and
which tasks are the most urgent or important. Management is thus like investing, a process
of allocating resources to obtain the best return, even if those resources are just your own
time, knowledge and experience. Clearly, it is possible for all employees to manage their own
time and other personal resources without occupying a formal managerial role and without
managing people.

2. Managerial responsibilities in a creative organization.

The modern manager needs to get work done through people to be engaged with them, self-
managing and sharing knowledge with workers, who are far shed tears from the “hired
hands” of the industrial age. The role of today’s manager can be illustrated by four analogies.
Today’s managers need to behave in different way. They need to play following roles:

1. investors
2. customers
3. sports coaches
4. partners

Summary
Now let me summarise the session

Friends, we have seen that Creativity is the ability generates innovative ideas and converts them to
reality. It basically involves imaginative and original thinking and implementing that into reality.
Creativity leads to think and design something new, solve problems in new and different ways and
to give shape and abstract idea in the mind base on an original, new or unconventional approach.

Entrepreneurs should have leadership, culture, and values. Many environmental factors are
affecting creativity and innovation. Every entrepreneur should be creative and motivator because
creative solutions are not found if the individual is not motivated to apply his or her skills.

This session also covered what kinds of management practices foster creativity and which
practices inhibit creativity in organization. Infact, Creativity needs to be understood in light of its
three individual-level components: creative thinking skills, expertise, and motivation. Managerial
practices that affect creativity fall into six general categories: challenge, freedom, resources, work-
group futures, supervisory encouragement, and organizational support. Thus, for any
entrepreneur it is imperative to stimulate creativity in organisation. The role of entrepreneur in
stimulating creativity and motivating employees in using creativity in work leads to success of the
organisation. I hope you liked that session

Thank you