Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Last week, I attended a talk on "Innovation & Entrepreneurship in an Interdependent World"
by Dr. Georges Haour, IMD, Switzerland

It was quite an enlightening session. It gave rise to my inspiration to write on Innovation that is related to the Singapore Real Estate Agency and Agent environment which I am more familiar with due to they are our clients.

First of all, Agents and Brokers themselves are entrepreneurs. Sad to say, but it is a fact that real estate brokerage is not a vital industry in our economy. Therefore, they should put more weight on Innovation than the others. It is even more so during this global economic crisis we are in now.



My understanding: "Innovation is about ideas that change for a better way". It is not about new ideas, it is not about spending a lot of money and it is certainly not about re-inventing the wheel.

In short, to me, it is about implementing the ideas that can change the way we get things done better.

It is so simple to say but it is so difficult to do or implement....... Changes take time and pain ....



In the above video, even effort is required just to "implement the idea". The man got to get out of his comfortable zone of lying on the couch and implement his idea.
But I believe for most people, they will just "live with it as it is". And innovation is "killed" or not even born.

Let us relate it to the Real estate agents. Internet has been like a "god gifted" platform for the Real estate agents to save money, save effort and being more efficient. If real estate agents were to make use of Internet in a correct way, it is already a form of innovation. Again, sad to say, Innovation is easier said than done. In this case, perhaps Dr Haour has summed up the 2 keys to innovation.

They are
1) Leadership
2) Trust

For individual agents, they have to take leadership themselves and trust that Internet is the way to go. For team leaders, they have to stand up and show strong leadership to lead the team and gain trust from the team members. The same goes for agencies. Just to share a quote that I come across.

"Leadership is Action and Not Position."

However, it is not the case. Why? Because not many of them are familiar with the Internet. For those who are very experience and senior as an agent, the old ways worked for them and they have a pool of clientele, why do they need to "change" and get "unfamiliar"......

As for those who thought they know about Internet, but the actual fact is they don't really know. This group will get hurt most because they "misunderstood" the Internet. They did not get any result after spending money on it and lost faith in the Internet.

My advice to real estate agents, team leaders and agencies is that we can predict the future by looking back into history. Take leadership, have patient and determination to make use of Internet. You will be most welcome to contact me if you would like to have me to lead you or your team in innovating the use of Internet in your real estate business. Feel free to just drop me an email or go to our company's website at www.mondarlezo.com.