Calvin, Hobbes and the Entrepreneurial Imagination

I have been writing about entrepreneurship for a few weeks now, and one of the articles on NVC as an imagination, sparked a conversation with a psychologist Chetana.Chetana got my attention to the role imagination plays from a psychology perspective; this sparked an idea to write a few joint blogs discussing this with our readers. Chetana loves Calvin and Hobbes and I too followed the snippets ardently as a kid, so we just decided to start with Calvin and Hobbes. 

Most of us would have read the witty snippets of Calvin & Hobbes, the Sunday special editions often carried these. To those of us who did read them, it was the humor we loved then, but now it is buttressed with deep thought that underlies the conversation between Calvin and Hobbes to enjoy them more.

Coming back to our conversation on entrepreneurship, we began wondering if we could find Calvin as an entrepreneur anywhere in the snippets? If Calvin were to take up an entrepreneurial pursuit, how would he go about it? We searched a bit and here is a small strip showing Calvin with his NVC (New Venture Creation) idea.

Cartoon Credits: http://www.calvinandhobbes.com

For those of you who know Calvin, he is a dreamer, even a day dreamer. Like most of us entrepreneurs he dreams, but we don’t believe entrepreneurs are day dreamers, the do act on their imagination. A quintessential part of his dreaming is his imaginary friend – Hobbes – The Tiger. Hobbes for Calvin is not just a soft toy or a simple character in his imagination or his dreams; but a personification, an imaginary ‘Friend’ who accompanies him in all his adventures.

Given that Calvin in the above snippet chose to start his venture, Hobbes who is the imagination we believe it would be good to understand the effect Hobbes has on Calvin to understand the new venture idea better. So let’s ask - Why does Calvin believe Hobbes to be so much a reality? 

Here is where having a psychologist in your team to write helps.

Why do we dream*** ?

Theories of dreaming spanning various scientific disciplines suggest that it is a means by which the mind works through complicated, unsettling thoughts, emotions and experiences, to achieve  psychological  and emotional balance. It is a reflection of our minds current themes and unfulfilled desires.

          What about day dreaming? We do it to detach ourselves from our immediate surroundings, to substitute them with a visionary fantasy, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes and ambitions.

Dreams often allow us to move beyond our perceived boundaries to explore adventures. To take up risks and challenges we would otherwise not have taken up. Thus, Dreams are a form of a "coping mechanism" – we use in sleep and during day to adapt, manage and bridge ourselves to the worldly circumstances. 

In an earlier blog, we had said that entrepreneurs need to bridge their imagination to the world’s reality, which can be accomplished only through actions and by becoming a doer. Put another way, our dream (‘ad-venture’) is triggered by an aspiration or a problem we encounter in the real world. The dream helps us cope and is anchored on a conjuncture that in reality is untested. Until an entrepreneur acts on this imagination, it is just a dream. Put differently - the difference between a day dream and an enterprise is- Action.

Entrepreneurial action then is to translate the imagination to a reality outside. An imagination often is intangible, invisible, free flowing, biased, illogical, unstructured and thus often unsharable in its initial conceptualization. The only person, who senses it, is the imaginator, the dreamer. The journey towards creating a reality then is to make this imagination more tangible, visible, bounded, structured, accepted, shared and sustainable.

But our entrepreneur is more like Calvin. Here is how: Calvin believes Hobbes is a real character out there. For Calvin’s mom, Hobbes is just a lifeless soft toy, a plaything for her son. But to Calvin, Hobbes is his best friend. Calvin wants his mom to treat Hobbes as real- if she doesn't - he will get mad. Calvin’s logic says-“I see it, so you should see it too! “Because the bond Calvin shares with his imagination (Hobbes) has deep roots. It’s his coping mechanism to understand the world of adults.

Step and ask yourself! How much of a Calvin am I? Am I expecting every potential stakeholder to be like Calvin’s mom, and when the stakeholder doesn’t agree to the way I perceive things, do I get frustrated? What could you then do to move away from this world of dreams to build your venture; the psychologist amongst us is introducing a short detour for you readers again here. She says:

" We have heard about IOT but what about POT - Psychology of Things ...

The reason why the comic strip did so well was because Bill Watterson could get into our heads and relate to us. He knew human habits, biases, he could empathise. He knew the Psychology of Things... He knew the Psychology of Humans. .He gained insights into human behaviour and though . He didn't put Calvin’s imagination into structure but only the way he presented it.

 He asked the right questions.

Asking questions - teaching to ask right questions is then the key"

Coming back from the detour, here is what we can take away if we are gearing up to move from Calvin’s imaginary world to our entrepreneurial pursuits.

• Ask the right questions and listen instead of selling. Assumptions and projections are a means to convince only your own self and the team. They will not provide you enough inputs that will take you away from the computer screens to your customer’s frame of mind.
• Go out there and observe.
• Anchor your imagination to the problems people complain about and the methods they use to cope with it.
• Do your homework to learn quicker than your potential competitor.

For mentors this would mean learning to handle the imagination of entrepreneur and appreciating the coping process driving it. To get Calvin to listen to his mom, mom must pretend to see what he sees, truly believe in her child’s capacity for creativity and then encourage and educate him about the importance of structure in order to bring some method to the madness.

May be, understanding how Bill Watterson plays with our minds could help us get others out of the usual traps and biases of our imagination.

***Please note: We would keep oscillating between a dream and imagination frequently, but that is only to highlight the nuances we intend to bring forth. But none the less - most new venture ideas start off as a dream that is being pursued by the entrepreneur.