CREATIVITY and leadership constitute the foundation of entrepreneurship. Creativity and leadership are the primary raw materials for starting the entrepreneurial journey, sustaining its deliverables and succeeding in business. Organisations, institutions and nations are built on the foundation of creative leadership.
In my previous article, I made it abundantly clear that creativity is only 25 percent of entrepreneurial leadership, while leadership, that is, the ability to start, sustain and finish a worthy cause takes 75 percent. Even though creativity is only one quarter of entrepreneurial leadership, it is a non-negligible component required for entrepreneurship to thrive.
Nothing can take the place of creative thinking, planning and executing. Creativity is the foundation of the human existence, so nothing else can replace that. Leadership is organized creativity. Without creativity, nothing can be started, sustained and finished. Without leadership, creativity cannot be organised. Without creativity, leadership is not recognized.
Creativity is the use of imagination to create something. Vision is an idea or mental image of something. We cannot build on nothing. Perpetual productivity is a product of creative thinking. A firm’s firm foundation is nothing but creative leadership. What vision is to leadership is what innovation is to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial leaders are individuals and organisations who envision possibilities and create opportunities.
Innovation is the ability to apply creative solutions to problems and to opportunities to enhance and to enrich peoples’ lives. Vision on the other hand, is the ability to apply insight to problems and to opportunities to enhance and to enrich peoples’ lives.
Vision gives a firm genuineness, while innovation adds to a firm newness. The uniqueness (‘genewness’) of an organisation is therefore rooted in innovation and vision (‘Innovision’).
Innovation without a vision is a limitation. Also, vision without an innovation is an imitation. Qualitative (innovative) entrepreneurship is a product of vision and innovation, while quantitative (imitative) entrepreneurship is a product of vision.
Without a firm foundation in vision and innovation firms don’t last. Imitators are genuine in their own right due to the vision to imitate, but the hallmarks of innovators are newness and genuineness. Imitators don’t innovate! Innovators don’t imitate!
Innovators apply creative solutions to problems and to opportunities to enhance and to enrich peoples’ lives. Imitators on the other hand, apply hindsight to problems and to opportunities to enhance and to enrich peoples’ lives. Firms with a firm entrepreneurial foundation operate by vision (an insight based on hindsight with the benefits of foresight) and innovation (newness and innovativeness).
Entrepreneurship is 25 percent innovation and 75 percent vision. A firm’s firm foundation is 25 percent innovation and 75 percent vision. Remember that innovation is applied creativity, while vision is applied insight. Creativity is the use of imagination to create something, while insight is the use of inspiration to build something. Leadership is the ability to build (start, sustain and finish) a worthy cause.
Below are some of the finest quotes on innovation and vision:
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
“Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” – Theodore Levitt
“If I have 1,000 ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.” – Alfred Nobel
“Innovation—any new idea—by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalised by an organisation. This requires courageous patience.” – Warren Bennis
“When all think alike, then no one is thinking.” – Walter Lippmann
“It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago but will soon be out of date.” – Roger von Oech
“There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.” – Brené Brown
“I am looking for a lot of people who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.” – Henry Ford
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
“The best vision is insight.” – Malcolm Forbes
“Everything begins in the mind. If you want to see clearly, you need clear vision.” – Swami Satchidananda
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” – Helen Keller
“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” – Joel A. Barker
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” – Jonathan Swift
“We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.” – Khalil Gibran
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organisational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie
“The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life.” – Tony Dungy
“The world of great opportunity is available now, as it has always been, only for those with great vision.” – Andrew Carnegie
“All successful people, men and women, are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.” – Brian Tracy
“People only see what they are prepared to see.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” – Woodrow Wilson
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