A discussion about the process, steps and options of starting a new business

Business is not for the weak of heart.  And, it requires a business owner to approach problems in a creative way.

Business expert Robert Ringer has some great thoughts on creativity and it's role in sales, marketing and business:

One of the most encouraging facts about the brain that researchers have discovered is that intelligence is not a prerequisite to creativity.  IQ tests focus on convergent thinking, which views a problem as having only one solution.  There is no creativity involved in this process.  To be creative, you have to think divergently, which entails considering many solutions.  And that, in turn, requires that you to disregard conventional wisdom and consider far-ranging possibilities.

Studies have demonstrated that the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for convergent thinking, while the right hemisphere is the home of divergent thinking.  Thus, a person with severe left-brain damage can still be creative.

Anyone who has ever watched young children at play knows that they tend to be very creative.  However, their creativity becomes suppressed by a school system that values conformity and specific answers to specific questions. 

Further conformity is demanded, or at least encouraged, on job applications and in the workplace.  The cerebral risk-taker who dares to go against conventional wisdom does so at his peril.  If his unconventional idea is adopted and proves to be a winner, he may very well be on his way to the presidency of the company.  But if he’s wrong, he may be looking for a new job.

Of course, those who are self-employed don’t have to worry about getting fired, but they do have to worry about going broke.  Thus, one of the prerequisites for creativity is having a well-endowed lower anatomy.

Knowledge is another factor that is critical to creative thinking, in at least two ways.  First, because the left brain is the cerebral filing cabinet for specific knowledge, it keeps the creative right brain from running wild.  We’ve all known people who come up with an idea a minute, but most of their ideas either fail or never get off the ground.  

Usually, it’s a result of their lacking enough specific knowledge in their left brain to silence their creative right brain and tell it to move on to the next idea.

Second, and even more important, if your left brain is overflowing with knowledge, your right brain has access to the material it needs to be creative.  Good ideas and concepts are only as good as the knowledge upon which they are based.

If you're in business, look for creative ways to solve the problems that are bound to arise from time to time.