One of the tools we use during innovation sessions is to envision what the future will look like. This graphic, created by The Board of Innovation, is a simple way to get the mind thinking of new possibilities.  FUTURE-SCAN.pdfPick a number and come up with new ideas for that industry. Combine the ideas from several different numbers to create something new.

Creative leadership development is all about replacing a someone’s disempowering mindsets and action routines with empowering, creativity-inducing ones. While as a creative leadership coach, I can observe the actions of disciples, I cannot directly intercept their thoughts. Fortunately, however, I can get valuable hints about the thoughts of potential creative leaders by paying close attention to, and intently listening for, the words they regularly use.

Have you ever participated in an innovation project? Have you ever worked as a member of an innovation project team on an innovation case that your senior management deemed important? Did you enjoy the entire project experience?

Does innovation really deliver tangible financial results a company? Do investments in innovation yield a positive return? Does innovation pay?

What creative leaders do you know and admire? What makes them special? Why do you admire them?

“Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite”, noted the French post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin. Having produced more than 500 paintings in his 55 years of life, Gaugin clearly exemplified output focus at work. How does this compare to what’s going on in modern business? Nowadays, countless businesspeople are frantically busy at work.

In Part 1 of this two-article episode I introduced you to a variety of well-known personality tests or cognitive profiling methods. You may have already heard of —or even been tested in— tools such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Herrmann’s Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), DISC or the Enneagram. In today’s part 2, allow me to share how to scrutinize the underlying conceptual constructs and design architecture of a cognitive profiling method by answering the following questions: What con...

A few weeks ago, I participated and presented a paper at the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM)’s Innovation Conference in Stockholm. While listening to the keynote talks and academic paper presentations, actively participating in workshops and hot topic sessions, and observing the hustle and bustle of the conference, a thought suddenly struck me: “Innovation has come of age — both as an academic discipline and as a business service.” Why...

To what extent can businesspeople be developed into creative leaders through a structured creative leadership development method and a related experiential course pedagogy? And how can we verify if the chosen approach is valid both regarding its methodological contents and its pedagogical delivery? Together with my colleagues Brian Hunt and Xavier Parisot (IKI-SEA, Bangkok University), I investigated these research-guiding questions for a new research study titled “Creatively Developing Cr...

Kung Hai Fat Choy, Happy Chinese New Year! Tomorrow marks the start of the Year of the Dog, or to be more precise, the Brown Earth Dog. The dog was the first species that humans domesticated, and thanks to this long bond with humans.

In September 2018, Motivational Press will publish the first part of my book trilogy “Genius Journey. Developing Creative Leaders for the Innovation Economy.” At the moment, I update and refresh the copy that I originally drafted in 2013-14, and I see this also as an opportunity to simplify how I present key concepts of the Genius Journey method in my creativity and leadership book. So in simple terms, what is the Genius Journey Method?

Genius Journey, the creative leadership development method that I’ve created, invites candidates to go on an imaginary journey where they travel to ten destinations to rediscover their inner creativity. At each destination stop, they learn about one disempowering mindset or action routine that limits their creativity, and they also get introduced to a corresponding empowering mindset that reconnects them to their inner creativity. At the 10th stop of Genius Journey, you need to s...

When you work with a team on an innovation project case, what matters is not only what kind of thinking tool you use when in the innovation process. To do sound thinking and produce adequate outputs, it also matters how exactly you use the tool — or in other words: how you communicate and interact with other team members while applying a particular tool, and how you capture outputs. Today, let’s learn more about the different communication styles that you can use while working on an ...

Take a moment to think about the following questions: What innovative companies do you know? What companies do you consider to be highly creative and innovative? What factors have made these firms become innovation leaders?

Around the time we entered the new millennium, humanity moved from information intensification into a new economic age: the age of creation intensification. In the innovation economy, the key competitive advantage of individuals, companies and countries alike is creation — the ability to use existing and newly emerging theories, know-how and technologies to create novel, original and meaningful value.In the coming two to three decades, creativity and innovation rule will be the key drivers...

The prolific American innovator Charles F. Kettering once said: “The world hates change. Yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” Innovation means change.

Does innovation really deliver tangible financial results a company? Do investments in innovation yield a positive return? Does innovation pay?

What do the state of the economy, a product, a corporate venture, a leading technology, the four seasons, and living things such as human beings have in common? All evolve and revolve in cycles, in “waves of change”. And as innovation means meaningful change, it often kick-starts a new cycle.

Have you ever wondered what an innovation process method is? And what it’s good for? And how it works?

When companies pursued innovation in the past, they typically worked on one of two innovation types: product innovation (also called new product development) and process innovation. Over the last two decades, however, a compendium of modern innovation types has emerged that allow companies to play the innovation game in many new ways. But as with any other game, you need to follow a set of rules.

Albert Einstein once said: “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Sadly, many businesspeople are on career tracks where they feel like a fish being asked to climb trees. I used to be one of those people earlier in my professional career, before I discovered which work environment best fits my innate talents. But how about you? Do you work in a “hot” work environment that supports your natural abilities?

What are the long-term impacts on learners who have taken training in structured innovation? What do they recall from the course? What is the long-term effectiveness of a systematic creativity training with regards to building-up creative confidence and creative confidence in learners?