Innovation

Recently I had cause to reflect on the nature of competition (in this case for a Trademarked name I have).

By its nature, competition reduces everyone to winners or losers with the winners having to 'take' from the losers. It's about dividing the pie more unevenly, whereas creativity and innovation only ADDS to the mix and expands the pie.

Picked up an interesting book at a friend's place -- Diarmuid O'Murchu's "Adult Faith: Growing in Wisdom and Understanding"1

Diarmuid speaks of needing to engage paradox and the many related implications:

First comes paradox! ... A paradox does not make sense to our rational minds. A paradox captivates a surplus of meaning that cannot be contained with the structure of rational discourse. For an adult spirituality of our time this is a crucial issue. Adults today are rarely satisfied with compelling rational explanations; there is a "surplus of meaning" that transcends rationality, yet to mature adults it feels essential in our search for deeper meaning. The ability to embrace paradox is central to this sense of maturity.

But what most impressed me2 was his explanation of the art of 'letting go' -- as covered in a previous post, I've found greater peace of mind by doing so in more substantial ways:

As a small business owner, you've probably heard about the growing need for creativity and innovation. Let's put things in perspective. Firstly, we know that franchised businesses are generally more profitable and successful. We've heard the rule-of-thumb regarding the 80/20 rule. 80% of small businesses go out of business in the first 5 years, while the reverse is true of franchises - 80% of franchises are not only still in business, but thriving.

So what do franchises get right? Good systems, and strong marketing. Do you need to be a franchise in order to have good systems? No, there's good-value help available from companies such as "Brain in a box" who focus on providing robust, effective systems for small businesses.

At the very least, reading and applying Michael Gerber's E-Myth material (on systemising the business) is invaluable to your future business success. But having good systems is only half the story - creativity, innovation or being imaginative is highly important to small businesses, and increasingly so. Research confirms that Einstein was right all along.

Imagination really is more important and profitable than knowledge. Experience, and what you know about your market, together with good systems is helpful, but new data reveals that entrepreneurial startups are the real engine of economies: