How To Be Innovative And Develop Great Ideas

The imperative to innovate is widely touted. Forbes recently declared innovation to be “crucial to your organization’s long-term success”, while Inc. has proclaimed it to be a 'differentiator' which “just might be the most important component of a successful company.” At the same time, questions abound over whether innovation is innate or if it can be taught and learned.

One popular line of thinking is that, while it is true that innovation comes more naturally to some people than to others, this does not mean that an innovative mindset can’t be cultivated and developed. If you are eager to embrace your own inner innovator, here are five things you can do.

1. Be curious.
Innovators aren’t content to kick back and accept the world around them at face value. Rather, they are always thinking about what can be done to make the world better.

In his book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World, Tony Wagner asserts the profound value of curiosity. Curiosity often involves questions such as 'how does it work?', 'Why has it not be done?' or 'What if?'. And the best innovators marry such curiosity with a deep dedication to finding the answers.

Which begs the question: what can you do to spur your own curiosity? Jeff Cobb explains in an article for Mission to Learn, “The tendency for curiosity to atrophy as we age is perhaps the reason why innovation becomes less common. So, be sure to keep asking questions, and maybe embrace the learning habits of your average toddler.”

2. Be comfortable standing alone.
Innovators don’t get where they are by going along with the crowd. They do it by bucking convention -- which sometimes means standing alone. Furthermore, the importance of allowing space for individual thinking cannot be overstated.

The Business Romantic author Tim Leberecht explains in Inc., “A team is usually faster than a single brain at solving a crossword puzzle. But if it comes to creating a crossword puzzle, the team will nearly always lose against a solo thinker.”

Leberecht's takeaway? Claiming time for personal “pause and reflection” can be a productivity booster when it comes to innovation.

3. Explore the unexpected.
Not all roads are direct. In fact, many amble along, taking detours and stops, until they end up at completely unexpected -- and wonderful -- destinations.

There's no better example than Steve Jobs. Website SuccessIsWhat highlights the role taking a calligraphy class played in helping the Apple visionary revolutionize digital typography. Because while “the democratization of digital type” may seem normal to us now, according to Thomas Phinney, a senior product manager for fonts and typography, it was a different story pre-Jobs. “The idea that the average person on the street might have a favorite font was a radical thing,” he told Digital Trends. And unless Jobs -- heralded today as “the godfather of fonts as we know them” -- had ventured out of coding class and into calligraphy class, who knows where we would be?

4. Identify -- and develop -- your areas of specialty.
As discussed above, innovation rarely takes place within a single area. Rather, it occurs at the intersection of different skills, technologies, and fields. Pyze co-founder Johns Chisholm asserts, “Innovation is not magic. Innovators take things they already know and combine them in new ways. In other words, you have everything you need to innovate!” The more ways you can intertwine these specialties, the more opportunities for innovation you will create.

Innovation experts dub this “associating”. “What the innovators have in common is that they can put together ideas and information in unique combinations that nobody else has quite put together before,” Insead’s Hal Gregersen told CNN.

5. Network.
Of course, you can’t know everything about everything, and areas for innovation will exist outside of your comfort zone. This is where networking comes in. The more diverse your network, the better positioned you will be to innovate.

“Data says that people who have more varied connections hear more diverse information, and see patterns before other people. [...] They are able to put together something they hear from a conference they were at least week with a briefing they are at tomorrow and come up with a new idea,” suggests business school lecturer in strategic management Marc Ventresca.

Ventresca recommends setting aside just a half an hour each week to talk to someone outside of your immediate circle. He asserts, “If you do that every week, that’s 52 conversations in a year taking up 26 hours of time. Say 10 of those yield something interesting, and two of those 10 let you do something new and valuable -- by investing just 26 hours a year you've come up with something pretty remarkable.”

At Mantissa College, we deliver the Bachelor of Business Administration programme, a programme in collaboration with Paris Graduate School of Management, France. Meaning that, students will have the opportunity to study with us here at Mantissa College, in Malaysia and get an accredited French Qualification. 

This BBA programme enable post secondary school applicants, (applicants graduated from O-Level) with five (5) credits to apply directly into the Degree (BBA) programme, without the need of going through foundation or Diploma programme.

Mantissa College’s BBA program boasts a dynamic global network of more than 80,000 alumni. One recent alumnus, Ms Cathy, says, “I took the 3-years Bachelor of Business Administration course righ after my SPM (O-Level) without needed to go through Foundation or Diploma programme. The syllabus teaches me on the basics elements needed in the business field. The programme also enable me to learn from real people with real problems. Thanks to the diverse and up-to-date programme syllabus, I am now capable of taking up more projects because I had been exposed to a wider perspective on handling matters from my learning experience.”

Certainly, evidence attests to the tremendous value of the BBA Programme. Between its focus on this learning style and many other desirable attributes, Mantissa College’s Bachelor of Business Administration offers an invaluable inside edge for aspiring business leaders

Click To find out more on the BBA Programme, do view the Pre-Recorded Trial Class 

Documents needed
i) Scan copy of your SPM / O-Level / STPM / A-Level Results

To apply for the programme, please provide us with the required documents to info@mantissa.edu.my or Click Here to Submit your documents

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