The Concise Adair on Creativity and Innovation

131 Pages·2005·4.73 MB·English

by  John Adair

THE
CONCISE
Adair
on
creativity
and innovation
Edited by
Neil Thomas
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THE
CONCISE
The Concise Adair on
Creativity and Innovation
Edited by Neil Thomas
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Leadership Foundation,
ISBN 1 85418 273 0
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The author and editor
John Adair
John Adair is internationally acknowledged as having had a
significant influence on management and leadership develop-
ment in both the business and military spheres. He has seen
military service, lectured at Sandhurst, worked extensively as
a consultant, held professorships in Leadership Studies and
authored well received management and leadership books,
including Inspiring Leadership, The Adair Handbook of
Management and Leadership, The Concise Adair on Leader-
ship, The Concise Time Management and Personal Development
and The Concise Adair on Communication and Presentation
Skills. (www.johnadair.co.uk)
Neil Thomas
Neil Thomas is the Chairman of Thorogood Publishing Ltd
and Managing Director of Falconbury Ltd. He has been
involved in publishing and seminar/training for over twenty-
five years. (www.thorogood.ws, www.falconbury.co.uk)
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Contents
Introduction 1
Part one: Creative thinking 5
The creative process 7
Obstacles which inhibit creativity 7
The non-creative person 8
Developing creativity 9
Remember 16
Decision-making and the creative thinker 16
Key elements of creative thinking and
decision-making 20
Analysis 20
Synthesis 23
Valuing 25
Other useful approaches to creative thinking
and decision-making 26
Imaginative thinking 26
Conceptual thinking 29
Intuition 29
Checklist: How does your mind work? 30
Using creative thinking to evaluate the options 32
Checklist: Options 34
Calculating the risks 36
Part two: Innovation 39
The process of innovation 41
Five factors to create the right climate for
innovation 43
Innovation and organisation 44
Characteristics of an innovative organisation 45
Checklist for the innovative organisation 49
What qualities should a chief executive as a
leader have? 51
Motivation and innovation 53
Characteristics to look for when recruiting 53
What do innovative people expect from the
organisation they work for? 54
Distinctive characteristics of the creative leader 55
The generation of ideas 57
Team innovation 58
Communicating about innovation 60
Checklist for building on ideas 60
Brainstorming 62
Checklist: Brainstorming 64
Two more methods of collecting ideas 66
Suggestion schemes 66
Quality circles 67
Checklist for the generation of ideas 68
Dealing with change and overcoming obstacles
to innovation 69
Criticism 70
Exercise: Overcoming obstacles 70
Part three: Summary 73
A creative thinker and innovator in practice 75
The seven habits of successful creative thinkers
and innovators 77
1 Thinking outside the apparent confines of the
problem/situation 77
Checklist: Beyond the nine dots 79
2 Welcoming chance intrusions 80
Checklist: Chance intrusions 81
3 Listening to your depth mind
(the unconscious mind) 82
Checklist: Are you listening to your
depth mind? 84
4 Suspending judgement 85
Checklist: Suspending judgement 86
5 Using the stepping stones of analogy 87
Exercise: Putting the stepping stones of
analogy into practice 88
6 Tolerating ambiguity 89
Checklist: Tolerating ambiguity 90
7 Banking all ideas from all sources 91
Checklist: Banking ideas 93
Conclusion
Checklist for creativity and innovation 94
Appendix
Solutions to problems 97
Quotes about creativity and innovation 99
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