The Visual Mba

Two Years of Business School Packed into One Priceless Book of Pure Awesomeness

Jason Barron

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780358343646
• eBook ISBN: 9780358025399
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Business Education

Jason Barron spent 516 hours in class, completed mountains of homework and shelled out tens of thousands of dollars to complete his MBA at the BYU Marriott School of Business. Along the way, rather than taking boring notes that he would never read (nor use) again, Jason created sketch notes for each class—visually capturing the essential points of his education—and providing an engaging and invaluable resource.
 
Once finished with his MBA, Jason launched a widely successful Kickstarter campaign distilling these same notes into a self-published book to help aspiring business leaders of all backgrounds and income levels understand the critical concepts one learns in business school.
 
Whether you are thinking about applying to business school, are currently in college studying business, or have always wondered what is taught in an MBA program, this highly entertaining and visual book is for you.
 

Chapter Sixteen

Creativity and Innovation

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The problem today is most people spend time CONSUMING versus CREATING. Make a real commitment to start creating. It will benefit both your personal and professional life.

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When brainstorming, the game is all about getting out as many ideas as possible. Crazy ideas. Infeasible ideas. Just get them all out there. Idea generation is about divergence. As tempting as it can be, don’t critique any ideas until they are all out there.

Once you have done that, it is time to filter the ideas down (convergence). Put your business hat on and throw out bad ideas. Remember, the only way to get down to a great idea is to start with divergence first, and then convergence.

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First, think outside the box. Then associate your thoughts with things you have observed or experienced. This is the essence of creativity. Always be filling your “card catalog” with experiences and knowledge. Then take those cards and put them together in different combinations.

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Teams are critical to expanding your breadth. Include people who are different than you. This helps expand your idea pool dramatically. You can use these associative thinking methods in a team or individually—but try to leverage teams as much as possible.

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You may have a great idea that solves a huge problem—but if people don’t care, they won’t buy it. It could even be a lifesaving device.

“Pain” is personal. Personal Pain causes People to Pay.

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When solving any kind of problem, dive into the complexity. When you are providing the end solution, make it incredibly simple (elegant). Elegant solutions beat out non-elegant solutions 2–4x.

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Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) is a technique to take existing products and create new innovations from them by applying 5 different thinking models. subtract a feature. Or take a feature and give it a different purpose, etc.

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For example, take your product and subtract a feature. Or take a feature and give it a diffe...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Frontispiece
• Preface
• Author’s Note
• Leadership
• Corporate Financial Reporting
• Entrepreneurial Management
• Managerial Accounting
• Business Finance
• Marketing
• Operations Management
• Strategic Human Resource Management
• Business Negotiations
• Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Entrepreneurial Finance
• Judgment and Decision Making
• The General Manager’s Role
• Strategic Thinking
• Creativity and Innovation
• Startup Marketing Essentials
• Performance and Incentives
• Global Management
• Putting It All Together
• Closing Thoughts
• References
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH