Disciplined Dreaming

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. #4 New York Times Best Seller (Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous) #8 New York Times Best Seller (Hardcover Business) #2 Wall Street Journal Best Seller (Hardcover Business) #9 Wall Street Journal Best Seller (Hardcover Nonfiction) #9 Washington Post Best Seller (Hardcover Nonfiction) #1 USA Today Best Seller (Money) #10 Entertainment Weekly Best Seller (Hardcover Nonfiction) #10 Publishers Weekly Bestseller (Hardcover Nonfiction)

Preface ix Introduction 1 1 The Case for Creativity 7 2 Disciplined Dreaming: Your System for Creativity 19 Step One Ask 3 Defining the Creativity Challenge 41 4 Driving Curiosity and Awareness 59 Step Two Prepare 5 Gaining the Keys to a Creative Mind and Culture 81 6 Preparing Your Environment to Promote Creative Passion 109 Step Three Discover 7 Discovering the Ways of Creativity 125 Step Four Ignite 8 Generating Creative Sparks 143 9 Igniting the Sparks of Creativity: The Eight Most Powerful Techniques 163 Step Five Launch 10 Bringing Your Ideas to Life: The Launch 185 Epilogue: The Power of One 205 Appendix A: The Top Six Creativity Myths (and Truths) 207 Appendix B: Additional Warm-Up Exercises to Jump-Start Creativity 211 Notes 213 Acknowledgments 219 About the Author 221 Index 223