Synopses & Reviews
Discover your own thinking style at www.foursightonline.com/innovativeteam"The power of a good story to teach us important life and business lessons is strikingly evident in this enjoyable, realistic, and practical business tale. It's two books in one, really—both a fictional story and a factual tutorial on how you can move a group intentionally through the important stages of innovation. When you read The Innovative Team you'll travel down the path of breakthrough thinking and experience the many twists and turns, ups and downs, detours and speed bumps of a group that's challenged to solve a tough business problem. At the completion of the journey, you'll be treated to a master class in creative problem solving. You'll learn practical tools, valuable tips, and important concepts that you can apply to your own innovative team. It's a must-read for all leaders who want to improve the ways in which their groups find new and sustainable solutions to the ever-increasing challenges that organizations face."
—Jim Kouzes, coauthor, The Leadership Challenge; Dean's Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University
"Keeping the faith on new ideas, especially when they are genre breaking or truly innovative, is never easy. This story of a group of colleagues trying to do exactly that reveals the struggles occurring daily in organizations aiming to innovate. It offers insights into the frustrations of bringing about innovation, while providing readers with practical ways to drive creativity through their business."
—Linda Green, development executive, The British Broadcasting Corporation
"We live in an age of unprecedented and rapidly accelerating change, in which everyone wants to be innovative but few can define what that actually means or describe how to get there. Through simple language and storytelling, this book creates awareness of the creative resources in your organization and offers a proven framework to harness them and achieve real, measurable results. Highly recommended!"
—Dr. Casimer DeCusatis, IBM Corporation; recipient of the 2011 Sigma Xi Walston Chubb Award for Innovation and the 2002 Mensa Copper Black Award for Creative Achievement
"Great teams pursue innovation, and this book tells you how. Drawing on years of research, the authors offer a process you can use with your team. They show you what successful breakthrough teams do; they pull you toward your team's possibilities."
—Geoff Bellman, consultant and author of Extraordinary Groups and Getting Things DoneWhen You're Not in Charge
"If you're looking to up your performance as a team or simply increase your chances of getting change adopted, you'll get there with The Innovative Team. Backed by research-based tools and twenty years of experience, this book teaches individuals and teams how increasing their awareness of the breakthrough thinking process can accelerate performance. From fable to process deep-dive, this is a must for your toolbox."
—David Gonzalez, design and delivery manager, Center for Creative Leadership
Synopsis
Supposedly, our high level of cognition (and strategically placed thumbs) is what set us apart from much of the natural world.? But it turns out that while we all think, we do not all think the same way. We all naturally use the universal creative process, for instance, but our preferences within that process make all the difference in forging a workable solution. These preferences have an enormous impact on the ways we go about solving problems and how we work together.
?This book introduces a uniquely effective set of tools ? called FourSight, field-tested by top consultants, but never before presented to a mass audience ? that can help anyone from professionals to laymen solve problems and achieve performance breakthroughs. FourSight enables teams to understand their patterns of thinking and to then more deliberately manage themselves toward accomplishing a task.
?In business-fable style, the book reveals the impact that our underlying work style preferences have on our teams and their results. Part 1 travels along on a team?s journey from dysfunctional to high functioning. Part 2 reveals the theory behind successful breakthrough teams with a clear introduction to the four stages of the breakthrough thinking process. These stages will help both team members and leaders understand the dynamics present within their team and provide the reader with options for how to improve performance. It will also serve as a great resource for management and leadership development professionals, team leaders, and others interested in kick-starting innovation in their workplaces and lives.
Synopsis
New tools for tapping the creativity of teams and achieving breakthrough resultsThe Innovative Team is an engaging business fable that reveals the impact our underlying work style preferences have on our teams and their results. The authors present a breakthrough thinking process for developing successful teams. They introduce a uniquely effective set of tools built on FourSight, a measure of problem-solving preferences field-tested by top consultants, which can help anyone from professionals to novices solve problems and achieve performance breakthroughs. FourSight enables teams to understand their patterns of thinking and manage themselves more deliberately toward accomplishing a goal.
- Written as a business fable that recounts the story of a team's journey from dysfunctional to high functioning
- Outlines a new and effective set of tools for enhanced team performance
- Details the four stages of a dynamic breakthrough thinking process
The Innovative Team offers a great resource for management and leadership development professionals, team leaders, and anyone interested in kick-starting innovation in their workplaces and lives.
Synopsis
"The faster things change, manyexperts say, the stronger your crea-tive thinking and problem-solving skills need to be. To successfully compete in the twenty-first century, leaders are calling for increased training in creative problem solving everywhere from boardrooms to elementary classrooms."
—From the Introduction
Told through the lens of an engagingbusiness fable, The Innovative Team offers team leaders and team members a proven framework for promoting innovation and creativity within their organization. Based on more than twenty years of solid research and international field testing, The Innovative Team tells the tale of a fictional dysfunctional team that needs to come up with a good idea or get canned by their client. The fascinating narrative introduces a uniquely effective set of tools built on the authors' proven FourSight framework—Clarify the Situation; Generate Ideas; Develop Solutions; Implement Plans.
Using the FourSight approach, team leaders and members can learn how to focus their creative thinking in order to respond to situations that have no easy answers or immediately apparent solutions. It enables teams to under-stand their unique patterns of thinking and gives them the ability to manage themselves more deliberately toward accomplishing a goal. Implementing this field-tested framework demystifies the process of creativity and innovation so that any team can achieve performance breakthroughs.
The Innovative Team offers a great resource for management and leadership development professionals, team leaders, and anyone interested in kick-starting innovation in their workplaces and in their lives.
About the Author
Chris Grivas is an organizational and leadership development consultant focused on increasing the creative capacity of individuals, teams, and organizations. His clients have included Ernst & Young, Connecticut Children's Medical Center, and New York University, among others.
Gerard J. Puccio is department chair and professor at the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College and partner in FourSight, a training company and publisher of FourSight: Your Thinking Profile. He is an accomplished writer, speaker, and consultant to Fisher-Price, British Broadcasting Corporation, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kraft, and others.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
About the Authors xi
Foreword xv
Introduction 1
Part 1 The Story
Chapter 1 We Have a Problem 13
Chapter 2 JustWhat Kind of Duck AreWe Dealing with Here? 27
Chapter 3 The Sum of the Parts 33
Chapter 4 The Need and theWay Out 41
Chapter 5 Thinking About Thinking 59
Chapter 6 Mapping a Minefield 67
Chapter 7 The Power of a Good Question 77
Chapter 8 FromWild toWorkable 89
Chapter 9 Combining the Unlikely 99
Chapter 10 Be CarefulWhat YouWish For 109
Chapter 11 Preserving the Novelty 121
Chapter 12 Priming the Pump 127
Chapter 13 The Pieces Come Together 139
Chapter 14 What’s the POINt? 153
Chapter 15 Assisting Acceptance 163
Chapter 16 Sealing the Deal 181
Epilogue Where Are They Now? 187
Part 2 Exploring the Four Creative Thinking Styles
Chapter 17 Applying the Framework 193
Chapter 18 Clarifying the Situation 195
Chapter 19 Generating Ideas 205
Chapter 20 Developing Solutions 215
Chapter 21 Implementing Plans 225
Chapter 22 The Combination of Preferences Within People 231
Chapter 23 Creating Conditions for Success 237