Using innovative Thinking to Generate Business Ideas

Introduction

We all have some level of inherent innovative thinking skills. As with other activities, you can teach yourself how to think in an innovative manner. Sometimes innovative thinking requires us to look at things from new perspectives. Learn to unleash your inventive genius by thinking backwards. Innovative thinking is a willingness to think beyond what is and envision what could be. All it requires is knowledge, Ingenuity and Focus.

Elements of Innovative Thinking

-Unexpected Occurrences

-Incongruities

-Process Needs

-Industry and Market Changes

-Demographic Changes

-Changes in Perception

-New Knowledge

Sources of Innovative Thinking

-State of Mind: Creativity is a state of mind. Telling yourself or others “I’m not very creative,” or “I can never come up with new or clever ideas,” destroys that state of mind. Innovative thinking requires positive thinking.

-Environment: All of our senses — what we see, hear, feel, taste, and touch — influence our state of mind. A positive atmosphere contributes to a positive and innovative state of mind.

Some people thrive in loud, people-filled areas with much activity. Others need quiet and calm to think clearly and innovatively. Find that place, noisy or quiet, that makes you feel comfortable.

-Engange Yourself: Daydreaming, relaxation, and free association allow the mind to come up with new or unusual ideas or idea fragments.

-Determination: Creativity takes practice. Your creativity is there within you, but you must make a habit of using your imagination.

Although many of your best ideas will come when you “aren’t really concentrating,” you can make them happen more often by regularly practicing effective thinking techniques.

-Record Your Ideas: Ideas and thoughts are fleeting and unless you catch them immediately, they will be lost. There’s no way to predict when a great idea is likely to pop into your mind so you must be prepared at all times to record them. Once you have established the habit of idea recording you will be surprised at how many good ideas you actually think of each day

How to Generate Business Ideas through Innovative Thinking:

·        Start a Busi­ness that revolves around your innate ability:

Innate abil­i­ties help you do things with ease. Often times I hear peo­ple say, “what do you have flair for?” Innate abil­i­ties help you do things bet­ter, quickly and ‘nat­u­rally’ than oth­ers. It helps you do things effort­lessly!

One great thing about your innate abil­ity is that it pushes you, not the other way round. Look­ing for busi­ness ideas? It’s in you!

·        Turn Your Expe­ri­ence or knowl­edge into a Prof­itable Ven­ture:

Instead of ask­ing, “Which busi­ness can i start that will bring quick profit?”, turn your hands-​on expe­ri­ence or knowl­edge into a prof­itable ven­ture!

An entre­pre­neur is one who is able to make com­merce of his ideas, expe­ri­ence, knowl­edge and abil­ity and make good profit.

What do you know? Which skill have you acquired recently? What edu­ca­tion have you gained? What expe­ri­ence have you acquired? Do you know that there are peo­ple out there wait­ing to be served what you have?

·        Take Advan­tage of Tech­nol­ogy, Sit­u­a­tions & Oppor­tu­ni­ties

Have you heard about the story of two guys who trav­elled to a cer­tain coun­try where those who lived there wore no shoes? One of them saw an oppor­tu­nity in this sit­u­a­tion, got back to his home coun­try, ordered a large con­sign­ment of dif­fer­ent sizes of shoes, and exported them to the coun­try where the peo­ple there wore no shoes. He sold more shoes than he bar­gained for! This is a typ­i­cal exam­ple of tak­ing advan­tage of sit­u­a­tions.

There are sev­eral sit­u­a­tions around that you need to shine your eyes at!

The 21st cen­tury busi­ness ter­rain has seen busi­ness oper­a­tions move from man­ual– to technology-​based. If you are tech-​savvy, you could con­sider start­ing a busi­ness that revolves around help­ing busi­nesses trans­form their oper­a­tions and mar­ket­ing. Tak­ing up some infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy short courses or train­ing may be of help also.

Conclusion

Today’s managers are full of ideas, theories and information. They have extraordinary knowledge and expertise. They are highly skilled at traditional business thinking. Yet many feel uncertain and unmoored. They find planning for next quarter a tough challenge, never mind committing to decisions that will play out over one to five years. They continually ask themselves what is the new process, the innovative product, the game-changing service, the compelling vision. One senior executive recently told me, “We’ve lost our crystal ball.” The questions you need to ask yourself are one or all of the followings:

•      What’s Something I Could Do That’s Really Extreme?
•       What Could We Add To Something We Already Do To Make It More Extraordinary?
•        What Could We Strip Away From What We Already Do?
•        What Ideas Could We Take From Other Industries and Apply To Ours?
•         What Could We Steal From Competitors and Make A Slight Change To?
•         What Will They Be Doing In Our Industry In 20 Years?