Master Innovation
Are You Chasing After Resources or Stretching the Ones You Have?
Scarcity doesn’t have to be an obstacle. Rice business professor Scott Sonenshein reveals key questions for leveraging the power of constraints to drive creativity.
August 07, 2017

As a social entrepreneur, you’re used to never having enough money or time, lacking the right space, tools, or the biggest team. Your work consists of “making do,” “starting lean,” and “bootstrapping.” Are these the last resort when you’ve run out of options, or are these circumstances of scarcity actually an opportunity to shift into a more creative—and ultimately more impactful—mindset?
Scott’s research on a stretching mindset offers practical tools for practicing resourcefulness within constraints. Constraints have a bad reputation, but Scott admonishes that there are hidden opportunities within them. Scott has discovered that constraints actually lead people to be more creative, more engaged, and better problem solvers, by asking:
What if you had less money?
ASK YOURSELF:
- Which activities or offerings create the most impact?
- What is the most beneficial asset and how can you stretch it even more?