Entrepreneurs and small business have to wear most of, if not all, the hats in the company. We are Director, HR and employee. It requires a lot of skills that we need to learn on the fly. Innovation and creativity are two of the most important skills that an entrepreneur needs. But how do you get around learning these skill?
1. Be curious
Like a toddler, you should be asking why all the time. Question everything and get in the habit of not accepting the first answer you get and contrast it with other sources. This practice will train your brain to think in multiple ways and find logical solutions to your problems.
2. Get ideas from everywhere
Sometimes the answer to the problem isn’t in the problem itself. Sometimes it would help to find expertise from somewhere totally non-related to your business. What I mean is that creativity is taking knowledge from here and from there and putting it together.
Ther’s a lovely story from Great Ormond Street Hospital. They found that the handover from surgery to the intensive care unit was very complicated and led to a lot of possible human mistakes. One day some doctors were watching F1 and admired how the pit stop team completes the complex task of changing tires and fueling the car in about seven seconds.
So they invited the Ferrari F1 team to the hospital and through they expertise were able to improve the handover, avoiding human mistakes and becoming more efficient.
3. Train your brain with lateral thinking
If you Google ‘lateral thinking puzzles’ you will get an endless result of puzzles that will help you develop your lateral thinking. These puzzles are intended to trick your mind and make wrong assumptions.
4. Relax, have a bath or go for a run
Does it ever happen to you that you spend the whole day trying to find a solution to your problem and nothing? Then you go to bed, and suddenly there it is the answer!
What happens is that your brain uses the left side for the rational thinking, but when you go to bed the body and the left part of the brain are relaxing, the right side then activates.
5. Multitask
How many times you left the house talking to someone and halfway the street you are not sure if you have locked the door?
That happens because when you multitask both sides of the brain work at the same time. If you multitask, you train your brain to be used at full capacity.