Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity - Hardcover

Linkner, Josh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470922222 ISBN 13: 9780470922224

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2011

Synopsis

A 5-part process that will transform your organization — or your career — into a non-stop creativity juggernaut

We live in an era when business cycles are measured in months, not years. The only way to sustain long term innovation and growth is through creativity-at all levels of an organization. Disciplined Dreaming shows you how to create profitable new ideas, empower all your employees to be creative, and sustain your competitive advantage over the long term. Linkner distills his years of experience in business and jazz — as well as hundreds of interviews with CEOs, entrepreneurs, and artists — into a 5-step process that will make creativity easy for you and your organization. The methodology is simple, backed by proven results.

• Empowers individuals, teams, and organizations to meet creative challenges posed by the marketplace
• Turns the mystery of creativity into a simple-to-use process
• Shows how creativity can be used for everything from innovative, game-shifting breakthroughs to incremental advances and daily improvements to business processes
• Offers dozens of practical exercises, thought-starters, workouts to grow "creative muscles," and case studies

Disciplined Dreaming shows even the stuffiest corporate bureaucracies how to cultivate creativity in order to become more competitive in today's shifting marketplace.

#8 New York Times Bestseller (Hardcover Business)

#2 Wall Street Journal Bestseller (Hardcover Business)

#9 Wall Street Journal Bestseller (Hardcover Nonfiction)

#9 Washington Post Bestseller (Nonfiction Hardcover)

#1 USA Today Bestseller (Money)

#10 Publishers Weekly Bestseller (Nonfiction)

Q&A with Author Josh Linkner

Author Josh Linkner

Why is creativity in the workplace so important?
The world has dramatically changed in the last few years, and many of the competitive advantages of the past have become commoditized. With increased complexity, dizzying speed, and ruthless competition now commonplace in business, creativity and innovation have become the only true sustainable competitive advantage. Creativity is the one thing you can’t outsource. It’s the difference between game-changing companies and also-rans. Individuals may get hired based on their resumes, but they get promoted and succeed based on their creativity. Creativity has become the currency of success in the new era of business, and life.

What is Disciplined Dreaming?
Disciplined Dreaming is a five-part system to build, nurture, and manage creativity. It is based on my experience as a four-time entrepreneur, jazz musician, and venture capitalist, plus personal interviews I conducted with over 200 thought leaders--CEOs, entrepreneurs, artists, billionaires, nonprofit leaders. I developed Disciplined Dreaming by distilling the collective wisdom of this amazing group into a simple, easy-to-follow process that you can put to use immediately to drive your own creativity.

An accomplished musician yourself, you compare creative riffs at work to jazz improvisation. How do the two relate?
In jazz, 99 percent of the notes are improvised. Spontaneous creativity. However, that 1 percent that’s on the written page is incredibly important. It provides musicians with a framework to direct and enhance their creativity. Disciplined Dreaming is the business-world equivalent to that 1 percent. It provides a structure that enables creativity. In addition, jazz musicians use specific patterns and techniques as building blocks of innovation. I’ve been able to translate many of those concepts into the language of business, and I show readers how to inject them into their daily lives. These “riffs” can be applied to creative challenges of all sizes, and they help support the creative process.

How can you start working creativity muscles with a team that has grown stagnant?
The biggest inhibitor of creativity isn’t human potential, it is fear. While we enter the world with limitless creativity, our schools, organizations, and bureaucracies beat it out of us. We are so worried about saying the wrong thing, looking foolish, or having to take responsibility for a new idea that we govern our own imagination. Too often, corporate cultures stifle their most valuable natural resource—fresh ideas. This can be quickly fixed through using techniques in the book that deal with preparing your culture, physical environment, and mind-set to drive maximum creative output. Disciplined Dreaming includes new brainstorming techniques such as “RoleStorming,” “The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup,” and “Stick-it-to-the-man,” which will get your creative muscles in shape in no time.

About this title

About the Author

JOSH LINKNER is founder and chairman of ePrize, a dominant player in the promotions industry serving 74 of the top 100 brands. He is a four-time entrepreneur, venture capitalist, accomplished jazz musician, and highly sought-after keynote speaker. He has won several business, technology, and design awards, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Crain’s 40 under 40, Automation Alley’s CEO of the Year, and the Detroit Executive of the Year.

For more information, please visit www.joshlinkner.com

From the Back Cover

In Disciplined Dreaming, business innovator and jazz musician Josh Linkner shows exactly how you can create profitable new ideas, empower employees to flex their creative muscles, and tap into the power of creativity to sustain a competitive advantage over the long haul. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of successful CEOs, entrepreneurs, and artists, Linkner distills exactly how creativity can be encouraged, as well as its impact on the bottom line.

Disciplined Dreaming outlines a proven, easy-to-apply 5-step process―Ask, Prepare, Discover, Ignite, and Launch―that will help you and your team develop your creativity chops. Through illustrative stories, real-world examples, and fun yet practical exercises, Linkner shows leaders and team builders how to become immediately more effective in discovering new routes to profitable solutions.

Designed to be flexible, Disciplined Dreaming clearly demonstrates how creativity can be used for everything from innovative, game-shifting breakthroughs to incremental advances and daily improvements to business processes. With Disciplined Dreaming, even the most resistant corporate bureaucracies can cultivate creativity and become more competitive in today’s shifting marketplace.

• New York Times Best Seller
• Wall Street Journal Best Seller
• USA Today Best Seller
• Washington Post Best Seller
• Entertainment Weekly Best Seller

From the Inside Flap

As economies and world markets continue to change, businesses are constantly being pulled into cost cutting, automation, and risk management. Although these are important elements of business success, we can't lose sight of the driving force of prosperity, the reason that any company exists in the first place, the source of both business and human fulfillment: creativity.--From the Introduction

In Disciplined Dreaming, business innovator and jazz musician Josh Linkner shows exactly how you can create profitable new ideas, empower employees to flex their creative muscles, and tap into the power of creativity to sustain a competitive advantage over the long haul. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of successful CEOs, entrepreneurs, and artists, Linkner distills exactly how creativity can be encouraged, as well as its impact on the bottom line.

Disciplined Dreaming outlines a proven, easy-to-apply 5-step process--Ask, Prepare, Discover, Ignite, and Launch--that will help you and your team develop your creativity chops. Through illustrative stories, real-world examples, and fun yet practical exercises, Linkner shows leaders and team builders how to become immediately more effective in discovering new routes to profitable solutions.

Designed to be flexible, Disciplined Dreaming clearly demonstrates how creativity can be used for everything from innovative, game-shifting breakthroughs to incremental advances and daily improvements to business processes. With Disciplined Dreaming, even the most resistant corporate bureaucracies can cultivate creativity and become more competitive in today's shifting marketplace.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0470922222
• ISBN 13: 9780470922224
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256