Promoting Entrepreneurial Creativity in Third World Markets
As the future looms on, the past competes with its promises. Out of the roughly seven billion people on planet earth, over four billion live in countries designated as third world developing countries. Many of the its citizens have been robbed of the opportunity and right to discover, develop and manifest their true leadership potential due to oppressive ideologies and systems. The greatest impact has not been the physical restrictions imposed on them but the horrific mental damage inflicted on their self concepts of worth, esteem and value.
The result is an attitude that struggles to believe that there is hope for their dreams and a damage done to entrepreneurial creativity. Although we cannot change the past or the fact that these damages have severely affected the thinking processes of a generation yet in the midst of this we can hope for a promise. A promise of entrepreneurial creativity.
Promoting the entrepreneurial creative spirit in third world markets is a fundamental key to promoting our mental development to higher height of possibilities. Promoting entrepreneurial creativity involves the process of combining new ideas with elements currently in the markets. However, being able to devise new combinations depend on one’s ability to discern relationships between seemingly disparate items. Creativity then is the juxtaposition of ideas which were previously thought to be unrelated. It is the ability to combine ideas in a unique way or to make useful associations among ideas.
Creativity is not about inventing something totally new, it is about making new synergistic connections. You don't have to be a special kind of person to be creative – everyone can do it. It's not about who you are, it's about what you do. You just need to start looking for multiple solutions rather than settling for just one, and give yourself permission to be playful and inquisitive, flexible and versatile.
Psychologists call the activities associated with idea generation "loose associative thinking" processes. Associative thinking is not linear or sequential. It is jumpy. To invent new connections, the maintenance of uncertainty is important for a time. "Closure is a killer; it strangles associative thinking, in favor of arriving at "an answer". Early in the process, leveraging uncertainty, riding it, and valuing it are critical to developing robust ideas.
Although many third worlders will not consider themselves creative they all seem to have one thing in common – they are good at finding alternative ways of surviving and creating their world.
The good news is that creativity is a skill and a talent that can be learned and developed through practice. With this skill, one can dramatically accelerate his or her personal and professional growth. By sharpening your thinking skills and exercising your natural creative powers, you can multiply the value of your efforts and rapidly increase the quantity and quality of your rewards.
Keys to Developing your Creative Entrepreneurial Ability:
1. Take a Different View - It was by taking a different view of traditional business models that major innovations were achieved. To find a better creative practice to the current business enterprises in third world nations, force yourself to reframe the problem, break down its components and assemble them in a different way.
2. Ask Searching Questions -Creativity requires an inquisitive mind. Unless you ask lots of "Why?" and "What If"? questions, you won't generate creative insights. "To avoid this most common of creative errors, be sure to peek under all carpets, including your own. Don't take anything for granted. Especially success. Try looking at the world through more inquisitive eyes; try getting ideas in motion; try asking the all-important: "Why?" See what happens!"7
3. Try something New – Don’t hesitate to try the alternative solution to the reframe problem by pushing the bounds and limitations of restrictions aside. Simply try the alternatives to the problem you are trying to solve or solution you are trying to reach.
4. Brainstorming is a useful and popular tool that you can use to develop highly creative solutions to a problem. It is particularly helpful when you need to break out of stale, established patterns of thinking, so that you can develop new ways of looking at things. This can be when you need to develop new opportunities, where you want to improve the service that you offer, or when existing approaches just aren't giving you the results you want. Used with your team, it helps you bring the experience of all team members into play during problem solving.
5. Commit to and be an idea generator by expanding your horizons through reading and exposure to unfamiliar literature and materials.
6. Avoid Categorizations as best as possible - Don’t get me wrong we need categories to be able to handle the huge amount of information we use and control. That's why we have a hierarchy of folders and files in our computer, and that's why universities are categorized into faculties and departments. Categorization helps you, but can also prevent you from using what you know about one field in another. There is a well known problem in education called the transference problem. If you teach something in one context, students most likely will not be able to use that knowledge in another and build synergies which is critical for creativity.
I will end with this quote: “There is virtually no problem you cannot solve, no goal you cannot achieve, no obstacle you cannot overcome if you know how to apply the creative powers of your mind, like a laser beam, to cut through every difficulty in your life and your work."
Promoting Entrepreneurial Creativity in Third World Markets - To learn more about this author, visit Jasmine Renner's Website.
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Jasmine Renner
(Visit Jasmine's Website)
I am Dr. Jasmine Renner Director of
Development and Intl Outreaches at Develop
Africa Inc. Develop Africa is a 501 (c)
(3) non-profit, non-governmental (NGO)
organization founded with the aim of
facilitating meaningful and sustainable
development in Africa. Develop Africa is
headquartered in Tennessee, USA.
Through training, scholarship, investment
and partnerships Develop Africa is
committed to developing Africa’s people
through the promotion of transformational
education, resource development,
investment training and strategic
empowerment. Our premise is based on the
notion that in order to change one’s
personal, national or organizational
status there must necessarily be a “change
in the thinking and processing pattern of
the mind.”
A native of Sierra Leone, I practiced law
as an attorney specializing in general
legal practice. As a social entrepreneur
my background in strategic leadership and
business education affords me the
opportunity to consult, train and advise
on cross-cultural issues relating to
entrepreneurship, business development
and leadership education in sub-Saharan
Africa.
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