Entrepreneurs Are Tough To Be With

Very few people know their own leadership style — or strengths and weaknesses, for that matter. But that's a mistake.

There are a lot of awesome things about going to work for yourself. You make your own schedule, you get to work from anywhere, you can decide who you work with and what projects you take on, you get to create a culture that is in line with your core beliefs and most importantly you get to put something in the world that is a product of you.

In 1919 Jack Cohen decided to start his own business. He used his demob money from the Royal Flying Corps to buy groceries to sell on a stall in east London, and at the end of his first day sales were £4 with a profit of £1. Fast-forward to today, and while his company may have had a tough year – in October, it was forced to issue a profit warning – Tesco PLC still reported a global trading profit of £1.6 billion for the first half of 2012. It is this kind of success story that inspires people to set up on their own.

In his new book Creative Intelligence, Bruce Nussbaum argues that creativity is an undervalued skill that anyone can cultivate. Not just for artists and musicians, he argues, creative intelligence — or CQ for short — is what separates the winners and losers of the business world as well. The author, a professor at Parsons School of Design in New York, recently spent a few minutes explaining how each of us can go about cultivating our own CQ. What is creative intelligence? Taking original ideas and scaling them into the creation of new products and services.

In his new book Creative Intelligence, Bruce Nussbaum argues that creativity is an undervalued skill that anyone can cultivate. Not just for artists and musicians, he argues, creative intelligence — or CQ for short — is what separates the winners and losers of the business world as well. The author, a professor at Parsons School of Design in New York, recently spent a few minutes explaining how each of us can go about cultivating our own CQ. What is creative intelligence? Taking original ideas and scaling them into the creation of new products and services.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? In recent years, there have been dozens of studies about the qualities that make for a brilliant entrepreneur. While the terminology tends to vary from researcher to researcher, four traits show up consistently: drive, creativity, appetite for risk, and social intelligence. Concurrently, there's been a pretty thorough nature ...

There are four traits that UBS identified as common trends around the breakup of a monetary union. So has Cyprus (as is tirelessly pointed out, only 0.2% of the Euro area measured by GDP) set a course for the Euro’s destruction? Indeed, with Cyprus having checked the first three items on that list, while it has not left the Euro (yet), UBS concludes, "it may well be occupying a seat very close to the exit."   Via UBS: Is Cyprus Still In The Euro? The four traits are:

Creative industries like high-end television and animation and the visual effects sector will receive tax-breaks to stimulate growth. Osborne said: “[This will] help make us one of the most internationally attractive places to innovate. I also want Britain to be the place where people raise money and invest … I want to send a message to anyone who wants to create jobs here that Britain is open for business.