222 THE CREATIVE INVESTMENT TEAM
Exercise: What Kind of Investor Are You?
This is a good exercise to do with your investment team. It’s in-
tended to make you spend a few minutes reflecting on each person’s
different approach to investing. (I don’t mean low P/E versus high
P/E. I mean what’s underneath that—what is your thought pro-
cess?)
Take a moment to consider your investment approach.- How do you come up with new ideas?
- What was your last creative idea?
- How do you gather information?
- What are the steps in your creative process?
Now, stretch your thinking a bit. Answer these questions:- As an investor, what kind of animal are you?
- What kind of car would you be?
- What competitive sport is most like investing?
Finally, draw a picture of your investment process. What images,
metaphors, and diagrams would help us understand your approach?
More importantly, which ones help you understand your own inner
workings?
This exercise is useful in two ways. First, it gives you insight
into your own creative thought process. (One client, after doing
this exercise, realized that her best ideas came during walks, so she
made walking a regular part of her brainstorming.) Second, as you
listen to your colleagues, you’ll realize the rich diversity in creative
styles of thinking. Most groups of fewer than 10 people have very
different responses to the preceding questions. The work environ-
ment should support the thinking styles of the team members.14-25 ware 222 1/19/01, 1:17 PM