Are entrepreneurs born or made?
According to Amy Wilkinson is a strategic adviser, entrepreneur, and lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, ‘ the ability to turn ideas into enduring enterprises is available to anyone willing to learn and work’. As part of her research for her book ‘The Creator’s Code’, Amy analyzed nearly 10,000 pages of interview transcripts and more than 5,000 pieces of archival and documentary evidence. She worked to understand how creators, sometimes dismissed as unrealistic dreamers, not only come to disrupt competitors but also to reshape entire industries.
From the creators who invented online storage provider Dropbox (annual revenue $200 million), fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle ($3.9 billion), discount airline JetBlue ($5.7 billion), to a myriad of other successful businesses, Wilkinson found that they achieved entrepreneurial success in much the same way.
Without exception, creators describe their work as doing something much more than achieving financial ambitions—they aim to make a mark on the world. “This generation of technologists thinks about bringing people together to do all sorts of interesting things,” eBay founder Pierre Omidyar told her. “That’s intoxicating and incredibly motivating and creates a stage of human development that is fundamentally new.”
Creators are not born with an innate ability to conceive and build $100 million enterprises. They work at it. I found that they all share certain fundamental approaches to the act of creation. The skills that make them successful can be learned, practiced, and passed on.
1. Find the gap
By staying alert, creators spot opportunities that others don’t see. They keep their eyes open for fresh potential, a vacuum to fill, or an unmet need. Creators tend to use one of three distinct techniques: transplanting ideas across divides, designing a new way forward, or merging disparate concepts.
I characterize creators who master these approaches as Sunbirds, Architects, or Integrators.
2. Drive for daylight
Just as race-car drivers keep their eyes fixed on the road ahead, creators focus on the future, knowing that where they go, their eyes go first. Creators move too fast to navigate by the confines of their lane or the position of their peers.
Instead, they focus on the horizon, scan the edges, and avoid nostalgia to set the pace in a fast-moving marketplace.
3. Fly the OODA loop
Creators continuously update their assumptions. In rapid succession, they observe, orient, decide, and act. Like legendary fighter pilot John Boyd, who pioneered the idea of the “OODA loop,” creators move nimbly from one decision to the next. They master fast-cycle iteration and in short order gain an edge over less agile competitors.
4. Fail wisely
Creators understand that experiencing a series of small failures is essential to avoiding catastrophic mistakes. In the course of practicing and mastering this skill, they set what I call failure ratios, place small bets to test ideas, and develop resilience. They hone the skill to turn setbacks into successes.
5. Network minds
To solve multifaceted problems, creators bring together the brainpower of diverse individuals through on- and off-line forums. They harness cognitive diversity to build on each other’s ideas. To do this, creators design shared spaces, foster flash teams, hold prize competitions, and build work-related games. They collaborate with unlikely allies.
6. Gift small goods
Creators unleash generosity by helping others, often by sharing information, pitching in to complete a task, or opening opportunities to colleagues. Offering kindness may not seem like a skill, but it is an essential way that creators strengthen relationships. In an increasingly transparent and interconnected world, generosity makes creators more productive.
No special expertise is required to master the six skills. You don’t need credentials or degrees, although everyone has strengths in certain skills and weaknesses in others, the more we exercise and increase our proficiency in each, the more we will be able to make the most of every opportunity.
Creators engage in meaningful work with the aim of making a difference. To become one of them, all you need is to understand and practice the six essential skills.
Do you argee with the list? Or have anymore skills to add? Drop them in the comments section!
Curated from here
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