Build a creative business strategy

Want a breakthrough, game-changing business strategy? Don’t wait for inspiration to strike – apply these four approaches.

Game-changing strategies are born of creative thinking: a spark of intuition, a connection between different ways of thinking, a leap into the unexpected. Writing for Harvard Business Review, Adam Brandenburger outlines four ways to make the creative leap beyond what already exists to a genuinely new way of doing business. They are:

• Contrast. Identify – and challenge – the assumptions undergirding your company or industry’s status quo. This is the most direct and powerful way to reinvent a business.
• Combination. Steve Jobs said that creativity is “just connecting things”. Many smart business moves come from linking products or services that seem independent from one another.
• Constraint. Look at your organisation’s limitations and consider how they might become strengths.
• Context. Reflect on how a problem similar to yours was solved in an entirely different context, and surprising insights may emerge.

These approaches aren’t exhaustive – but they can help you explore a wide range of possibilities.