Harvard Business Review Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Harvard Business Review - Coursework Example The study found that 85 percent of the executives did not actively involve themselves with an innovation as they only played a facilitation role. Only 15 percent of the executives did the creative work themselves. The executives who did not delegate the creative work applied five skills that resulted in brilliant and industry changing ideas. The five skills that the study identified are discussed below in detail. The associating skill is an ability that allows the innovative leaders or executives to make a connection between ideas, questions, or problems, which are unrelated. These innovators connect dots of seemingly unrelated occurrences to generate new and creative ideas that can be recombined in new ways. The second discovery skill is questioning. Creative and innovative entrepreneurs challenge the standard method of undertaking processes and wisdom. They ask provocative questions that challenge common ideals and assumptions to understand them and see if better ways can be concocted. Under questioning, the innovative entrepreneurs use different techniques such as embracing constraints, imagining opposites and asked why, what if and why not questions. The observation skill is the third discovery skill that the study by (Jeffrey, Hal & Clayton, 2009) found to be common with the innovative entrepreneurs was observation. The some of the creative executives came up with business ideas, which were conceived through observation. Some of the most useful observations were those made of the potential customers. The innovators were keen on behavioral details that would give insights to a new approach to various things. By experimenting, innovative executives and entrepreneurs were able to test and fine-tune their ideas in order to understand and find new ways of doing a certain task or a certain approach. Not only is experimentation a means of coming up with new ways of