What do entrepreneurial and creative thinking have in common?
CREATIVITY IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Kaplan Jaroslav
Kaplan Research Company
Founder of the Business IQ project
Kaplan Jaroslav
Kaplan Research Company
Founder of the Business IQ project
Abstract
The article compares entrepreneurial and creative thinking, and defines the main characteristic features of creative activity and entrepreneurship.
Keywords:
entrepreneurial thinking, creative thinking, perceived value
The article compares entrepreneurial and creative thinking, and defines the main characteristic features of creative activity and entrepreneurship.
Keywords:
entrepreneurial thinking, creative thinking, perceived value
Today we find it hard to believe, but the Silk Road, mankind's greatest trade route, had the right to exist only because of the false assumption that there was no other sea route for the movement of goods from Asia to Europe ("but in fact there was"). This delusion gave the Silk Road fifteen centuries of competitive advantage. Drawing an analogy, we can say that many entrepreneurs think that there is no other way to develop their business - and I am sure that there is such a way, or rather - not a way, but many ways. The development of geography has allowed mankind to get rid of many erroneous beliefs, which cannot yet be said about the field of entrepreneurship, in which today there are countless false assumptions. Strangely enough, the modern globe called entrepreneurship still leaves most of the surface white and unexplored.
I am convinced that there are many similarities between the artist and the entrepreneur. In entrepreneurship just as in art, it is impossible to separate the concepts of "Who does" from "What he does.” However, unlike art, where the artist creates with brushes and colors, the writer draws magic from words and phrases, and the musician calls on chords and sounds, the entrepreneur has his own "palette" - the full range of how consumers perceive his products and services.
A true artist, just like a true entrepreneur, is himself a source of new ideas, new thoughts and new meanings. The very phenomenon of creativity is the creation of something unprecedented, extraordinary and unique - something that has never existed before. Creativity is the bridge that unites these two different worlds - the world of art and the world of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur's unique ability to look at an old problem from a new angle and recognize the real source of the problem puts him on a par with outstanding artists.
Albert Szent-Györgyi, the American biochemist who first isolated vitamin C, believed that "to explore is to see what everyone else has seen and to think what no one else has thought." [1]. For the business world, this can be considered a very non-trivial competitive advantage. Thinking like no one else has thought is a good start for any success story. Each truly creative act draws a boundary between itself and everything that came before. Beethoven would not have become Beethoven if he had only repeated what Haydn and Mozart had done. This is the level of the artist: because the artist has something that most people on this planet don't have - power over their own imagination.
The power over your own imagination and the ability to create are almost the same thing. The artist does not need consent from someone else to be able to imagine anything. He does not need to sacrifice his imagination for outside approval. This is where the similarities between entrepreneurs and artists lie.
In 2015, I founded the BUSINESS INTELLECT IQ research project to find the real reason for the high "mortality" rate in entrepreneurship. Only three or four entrepreneurs out of ten live to see their tenth anniversary. These numbers vary, of course, from country to country and industry to industry, but the overall trend is typical. The results of a seven-year study of entrepreneurship as a separate profession, as well as answers to the questions of what exactly "should" and "should not" be done in entrepreneurship, were outlined by me in the book "Business Incognita. How to Expand the Boundaries of Entrepreneurial Thinking", which was published by Alpina Publisher in 2022 [2].
One of the central conclusions of the analysis is that entrepreneurship at its core reveals similarities with only one area of activity - creativity and art.
Albert Einstein wrote: "It is impossible to solve a problem at the same level at which it arose. One must become higher than the problem" [3].
In further research, to describe a way of solving entrepreneurial problems and to illustrate the search for effective solutions for business managers, I formulated the allegory of a goldfish confined in its own aquarium. These ideas were accumulated in the form of a business fairy tale "The Odyssey of Goshio the Goldfish" [4]. This book systematizes and classifies a large amount of material that I have accumulated during many years of research, and also presents a list of the most common stereotypes and misconceptions among entrepreneurs, which often lead them to failure. The format of the business story was not chosen by chance. I proceeded from the assumption that if the results of my research were to be somehow popularized to a wide audience of entrepreneurs far beyond academia, the ideas would be best expressed in the form of a metaphor. Moreover, the fairy tale form is good because it "switches" the logical thinking of the entrepreneur, to which he is already accustomed, to non-logical thinking. I see this as making a lot of sense. This is the kind of thinking that is needed to work with entrepreneurial challenges, because at their core is the interaction with consumers, which is itself a creative rather than logical challenge. A fairy tale connects the conscious and the unconscious, the rational with the irrational, the world of images with the world of emotions, with deep human experience. It is necessary for the entrepreneur to look at the situation as if from the outside, to get a different view or a different point of view on the problem. When reading a fairy tale, the reader becomes an observer of the life of the characters and does not try to solve his own problem in a stereotypical, habitual way. From this new point of view, observing the events in the fairy tale, he can come to completely unexpected ideas. Such a position helps the reader to see non-standard, hitherto hidden options for getting out of the impasse in which he may have found himself. It is this human ability - the ability to look at a problem from a new perspective - that is what we call creativity.
The point of view of entrepreneurial activity is determined solely by the worldview of the one who will engage in it. Logic depends on the chosen perspective on the problem. We can build our "models of the entrepreneurial world" either through the techniques of art or science. Science is characterized by the presence of a known and well-defined subject of study, a known logic of the subject, and the means of problem solving existing in it. In art, none of this exists! This is where the main conflict in entrepreneurial activity comes from - the conflict between the problem itself and the methods of solving it. They are almost always incompatible with each other. Entrepreneurship is much closer in nature to art, to creativity, than to scientific activity. The scenario of the fairy tale is developed in such a way as to allow modeling different variants of situations - such where a solution is required for quite specific problems. This approach gives an opportunity to activate the entrepreneur's creative potential, allows to go beyond the usual stereotypical approaches and at the fairy tale, metaphorical level to find solutions that can then be successfully transferred to real-life business.
In today's world, the concept of entrepreneurship is increasingly linked to the concept of creativity. Unlike art, however, where the artist creates with brushes and colors, the writer creates magic from words and phrases, and the musician calls on chords and sounds, the entrepreneur has his own "palette" - or range of how consumers perceive his products and services. Without viewers, listeners, readers (i.e., without an audience), none of this would make sense - just as entrepreneurship would be meaningless without interaction.
As a result of many years of research into the specifics of entrepreneurial activity, I was able to formulate the concept of entrepreneurial thinking and business Intellect.
Business Intellect is a specific type of Intelligence of an entrepreneur, which is directly related to his ability to set and solve tasks arising in the course of entrepreneurial activity. The central object of such tasks, which I denote by the term "entrepreneurial tasks," is consumers' perceptions of the value of products. The perceived value of a particular product is any advantage that the consumer themself believes he will get from taking possession of this particular product and not any other [5]. In this sense, the entrepreneur needs to find a "place" in the market where there is maximum perceived value for his products. Such a "place" in the market is not a place in the physical universe, but a place in the space of consumers' meanings.
The main principle of entrepreneurial thinking is that in their activity an entrepreneur always faces creative tasks that have several development scenarios and require two-way interaction with consumers. This logic requires entrepreneurs to make a complete paradigm shift in their business thinking. The main function of entrepreneurial thinking is to find new meanings and values for their current and future consumers. This is what the entrepreneur is akin to a creator. A true artist, just like a true entrepreneur, is the reason for new ideas, new thoughts and new meanings. The very phenomenon of creativity is the creation of something new, something that did not exist before. From this perspective, the concept of "category" reflects the space of all meanings for some given point of reference of value. It is a set of concepts that are together in one common semantic space.
The essence of entrepreneurial thinking is to find new meanings and values for its current and future customers. And the metaphor of a goldfish locked in its aquarium illustrates the phenomenon of the limited worldview of the entrepreneur, who recognizes the whole "picture of life" only by the small fragment that it can directly observe, realize and understand. Since any entrepreneurial activity is based entirely on the worldview of the entrepreneur himself, achieving success in business largely depends on the entrepreneur's ability to analyze the context of interaction between all participants in the entrepreneurial activity, as well as on the ability to reject erroneous beliefs and false assumptions prevailing at a given historical moment. The entrepreneur's unique ability to look at an old problem from a new angle or to recognize the real source of the problem puts him or her on par with outstanding artists.
Thus, entrepreneurial thinking allows us to look at an old problem from a new angle. This is what brings entrepreneurial activity closer to the creative act because each next truly creative act of activity draws a new line from all the previous ones.
I am convinced that there are many similarities between the artist and the entrepreneur. In entrepreneurship just as in art, it is impossible to separate the concepts of "Who does" from "What he does.” However, unlike art, where the artist creates with brushes and colors, the writer draws magic from words and phrases, and the musician calls on chords and sounds, the entrepreneur has his own "palette" - the full range of how consumers perceive his products and services.
A true artist, just like a true entrepreneur, is himself a source of new ideas, new thoughts and new meanings. The very phenomenon of creativity is the creation of something unprecedented, extraordinary and unique - something that has never existed before. Creativity is the bridge that unites these two different worlds - the world of art and the world of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur's unique ability to look at an old problem from a new angle and recognize the real source of the problem puts him on a par with outstanding artists.
Albert Szent-Györgyi, the American biochemist who first isolated vitamin C, believed that "to explore is to see what everyone else has seen and to think what no one else has thought." [1]. For the business world, this can be considered a very non-trivial competitive advantage. Thinking like no one else has thought is a good start for any success story. Each truly creative act draws a boundary between itself and everything that came before. Beethoven would not have become Beethoven if he had only repeated what Haydn and Mozart had done. This is the level of the artist: because the artist has something that most people on this planet don't have - power over their own imagination.
The power over your own imagination and the ability to create are almost the same thing. The artist does not need consent from someone else to be able to imagine anything. He does not need to sacrifice his imagination for outside approval. This is where the similarities between entrepreneurs and artists lie.
In 2015, I founded the BUSINESS INTELLECT IQ research project to find the real reason for the high "mortality" rate in entrepreneurship. Only three or four entrepreneurs out of ten live to see their tenth anniversary. These numbers vary, of course, from country to country and industry to industry, but the overall trend is typical. The results of a seven-year study of entrepreneurship as a separate profession, as well as answers to the questions of what exactly "should" and "should not" be done in entrepreneurship, were outlined by me in the book "Business Incognita. How to Expand the Boundaries of Entrepreneurial Thinking", which was published by Alpina Publisher in 2022 [2].
One of the central conclusions of the analysis is that entrepreneurship at its core reveals similarities with only one area of activity - creativity and art.
Albert Einstein wrote: "It is impossible to solve a problem at the same level at which it arose. One must become higher than the problem" [3].
In further research, to describe a way of solving entrepreneurial problems and to illustrate the search for effective solutions for business managers, I formulated the allegory of a goldfish confined in its own aquarium. These ideas were accumulated in the form of a business fairy tale "The Odyssey of Goshio the Goldfish" [4]. This book systematizes and classifies a large amount of material that I have accumulated during many years of research, and also presents a list of the most common stereotypes and misconceptions among entrepreneurs, which often lead them to failure. The format of the business story was not chosen by chance. I proceeded from the assumption that if the results of my research were to be somehow popularized to a wide audience of entrepreneurs far beyond academia, the ideas would be best expressed in the form of a metaphor. Moreover, the fairy tale form is good because it "switches" the logical thinking of the entrepreneur, to which he is already accustomed, to non-logical thinking. I see this as making a lot of sense. This is the kind of thinking that is needed to work with entrepreneurial challenges, because at their core is the interaction with consumers, which is itself a creative rather than logical challenge. A fairy tale connects the conscious and the unconscious, the rational with the irrational, the world of images with the world of emotions, with deep human experience. It is necessary for the entrepreneur to look at the situation as if from the outside, to get a different view or a different point of view on the problem. When reading a fairy tale, the reader becomes an observer of the life of the characters and does not try to solve his own problem in a stereotypical, habitual way. From this new point of view, observing the events in the fairy tale, he can come to completely unexpected ideas. Such a position helps the reader to see non-standard, hitherto hidden options for getting out of the impasse in which he may have found himself. It is this human ability - the ability to look at a problem from a new perspective - that is what we call creativity.
The point of view of entrepreneurial activity is determined solely by the worldview of the one who will engage in it. Logic depends on the chosen perspective on the problem. We can build our "models of the entrepreneurial world" either through the techniques of art or science. Science is characterized by the presence of a known and well-defined subject of study, a known logic of the subject, and the means of problem solving existing in it. In art, none of this exists! This is where the main conflict in entrepreneurial activity comes from - the conflict between the problem itself and the methods of solving it. They are almost always incompatible with each other. Entrepreneurship is much closer in nature to art, to creativity, than to scientific activity. The scenario of the fairy tale is developed in such a way as to allow modeling different variants of situations - such where a solution is required for quite specific problems. This approach gives an opportunity to activate the entrepreneur's creative potential, allows to go beyond the usual stereotypical approaches and at the fairy tale, metaphorical level to find solutions that can then be successfully transferred to real-life business.
In today's world, the concept of entrepreneurship is increasingly linked to the concept of creativity. Unlike art, however, where the artist creates with brushes and colors, the writer creates magic from words and phrases, and the musician calls on chords and sounds, the entrepreneur has his own "palette" - or range of how consumers perceive his products and services. Without viewers, listeners, readers (i.e., without an audience), none of this would make sense - just as entrepreneurship would be meaningless without interaction.
As a result of many years of research into the specifics of entrepreneurial activity, I was able to formulate the concept of entrepreneurial thinking and business Intellect.
Business Intellect is a specific type of Intelligence of an entrepreneur, which is directly related to his ability to set and solve tasks arising in the course of entrepreneurial activity. The central object of such tasks, which I denote by the term "entrepreneurial tasks," is consumers' perceptions of the value of products. The perceived value of a particular product is any advantage that the consumer themself believes he will get from taking possession of this particular product and not any other [5]. In this sense, the entrepreneur needs to find a "place" in the market where there is maximum perceived value for his products. Such a "place" in the market is not a place in the physical universe, but a place in the space of consumers' meanings.
The main principle of entrepreneurial thinking is that in their activity an entrepreneur always faces creative tasks that have several development scenarios and require two-way interaction with consumers. This logic requires entrepreneurs to make a complete paradigm shift in their business thinking. The main function of entrepreneurial thinking is to find new meanings and values for their current and future consumers. This is what the entrepreneur is akin to a creator. A true artist, just like a true entrepreneur, is the reason for new ideas, new thoughts and new meanings. The very phenomenon of creativity is the creation of something new, something that did not exist before. From this perspective, the concept of "category" reflects the space of all meanings for some given point of reference of value. It is a set of concepts that are together in one common semantic space.
The essence of entrepreneurial thinking is to find new meanings and values for its current and future customers. And the metaphor of a goldfish locked in its aquarium illustrates the phenomenon of the limited worldview of the entrepreneur, who recognizes the whole "picture of life" only by the small fragment that it can directly observe, realize and understand. Since any entrepreneurial activity is based entirely on the worldview of the entrepreneur himself, achieving success in business largely depends on the entrepreneur's ability to analyze the context of interaction between all participants in the entrepreneurial activity, as well as on the ability to reject erroneous beliefs and false assumptions prevailing at a given historical moment. The entrepreneur's unique ability to look at an old problem from a new angle or to recognize the real source of the problem puts him or her on par with outstanding artists.
Thus, entrepreneurial thinking allows us to look at an old problem from a new angle. This is what brings entrepreneurial activity closer to the creative act because each next truly creative act of activity draws a new line from all the previous ones.
Jaroslav Kaplan
Author of the book "Business Incognita. How to push the boundaries of entrepreneurial thinking". Expert in the field of sustainable development of organizations and discovering new sources of growth. Developer of the methodology of contextual market research. Member of the International Association of Strategic and Competitive Intellect Professionals SCIP (USA).
Blog: https://www.kaplanresearch.pro/eng
In this light (yet profound) business fable a very magical and sincerely nice goldfish, Goshio, navigates her aquarium and the seas of the Paraquarian world beyond. The heroine's journey is an allegory of the entrepreneurial world (and of life) – based on the author's own research journey to circumnavigate the fascinating World of Entrepreneurship. www.goshio.com
Contact:
E-mail: work@kaplan4research.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jaroslavs-kaplans-11255b
Author of the book "Business Incognita. How to push the boundaries of entrepreneurial thinking". Expert in the field of sustainable development of organizations and discovering new sources of growth. Developer of the methodology of contextual market research. Member of the International Association of Strategic and Competitive Intellect Professionals SCIP (USA).
Blog: https://www.kaplanresearch.pro/eng
In this light (yet profound) business fable a very magical and sincerely nice goldfish, Goshio, navigates her aquarium and the seas of the Paraquarian world beyond. The heroine's journey is an allegory of the entrepreneurial world (and of life) – based on the author's own research journey to circumnavigate the fascinating World of Entrepreneurship. www.goshio.com
Contact:
E-mail: work@kaplan4research.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jaroslavs-kaplans-11255b
- Szegedi A. Great Hungarians: Albert Szent-Györgyi // Budapest. The Pearl of the Danube / edited by I. V. Osanov. V. Osanov. Moscow: Veche, 2012. 320 p.
- Kaplan J. Business incognita: how to expand the boundaries of entrepreneurial thinking. Moscow: Alpina Publisher, 2022. 256 p.
- Livio M. From Darwin to Einstein. The Greatest Mistakes of Genius Scientists that Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe. Chap. 10. MOSCOW: AST. 2015. 425 p.
- Kaplan J. Odyssey of Goshio the goldfish [Electronic resource]. URL: http://goshio.com(date of address: 11.05.2023).
- Kaplan J., Gurov F.N. "Business Intellect" and its role in various types of activity // Values and Meanings. 2023. № 2 (84). P. 125-138
