The Creative Discipline: Mastering the Art and Science of Innovation: Mastering the Art and Science of Innovation

by Nancy K. Napier, Mikael Nilsson

Overview

Why are some organizations more creative than others? What sets innovative, high-performing organizations apart? Can creativity and innovation be learned and enhanced? The answer to the last question, say creativity experts Nancy Napier and Mikael Nilsson, is a resounding yes. And with general consensus that creativity and innovation drive business growth, fostering creativity couldn't be more important. In The Creative Discipline, Napier and Nilsson illustrate six key factors that power creative, high-achieving organizations, and they provide managers with guidelines for incorporating those factors into their own companies. Business people will learn how innovative organizations get superior results from employees not just through disciplined methods of thinking, but also through free-flowing work spaces and work practices that help supercharge the imagination.

Combining research on creative organizations in several sectors, this book argues that innovative organizations known for doing things differently (and profitably) approach creativity and innovation in similar, disciplined ways, regardless of industry or field. That discipline fosters new ideas, solutions, and approaches, and it ensures that the flow of creativity is constant. The Creative Discipline demonstrates that: -Innovative, high-performing organizations have three disciplines in common: (1) within discipline mastery, (2) out of discipline thinking, and (3) a disciplined process that leads to innovation. -Innovative organizations also have three factors that strengthen the creative disciplines: faces (creative entrepreneurs, leaders, and teams); places (the physical and organizational infrastructure that is reflected in offices, buildings, and location); and traces (elements that act as catalysts for creativity—the culture, networks, and policies that support creative and innovative endeavors). The book explains each factor for creative success in detail. Best, Napier and Nilsson show creativity and innovation at work in a range of sectors from sports to software to theater and contemporary circus. They also show how innovative practices in developed countries like the U.S. and Sweden compare to those in developing countries like Vietnam. Companies can learn to innovate and in the process reap benefits like higher sales and profits, greater productivity—while regaining a valuable element missing in so many workplaces: fun.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275998851
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/30/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

NANCY K. NAPIER is Professor of International Business and Executive Director of the Centre for Creativity and Innovation at Boise State University. Her most recent book is Managing Relationships in Transition Economies (Praeger, 2004). Her articles appear in such journals as Creativity and Innovation Management, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Academy of Management Review, and Journal of Management Studies. She is also co-creator and host of Idaho Business Matters, a weekday radio program on NPR News 91.

MIKAEL NILSSON is an advisor and researcher on strategy, technology development, and the processes of innovation and change in a broad range of industries. He is currently program manager at the Knowledge Foundation, which focuses on driving Swedish competitiveness through knowledge and competence development. He has held positions at KPMG Consulting, Linkoping University, and been a visiting fellow at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION: Quarterbacks, Play Actors, and Engineers

1. Creativity Myopia

2. Three Disciplines and Three Aces: Right Now, Right for Now

3. Within-Discipline Thinking: Mastery for Creativity

4. Out-of-Discipline Thinking

5. Disciplined Process

6. Faces: The Creative Agents Who Make Creativity Happen

7. Places: Spatial and Social Architecture

8. Traces: Creating Magic in Organizations

9. Creativity and Innovation as Competitive Advantages: Moving Target?

Index

What People are Saying About This

Caleb Chung

"Napier and Nilsson have carefully de-constructed the magic of innovation, then go on to lay out a disciplined and structured approach for re-creating it. No small task!"

Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen

"This book lives up to its title. This unique, engaging and timely book leads us into the exciting world of creative and innovative organizations and explores how creative processes take place in the interplay between creativity and discipline. A much-needed addition to existing literature and of great value and inspiration to both academic and practitioner audiences."

John A. Hale

"The creative economy is America's best hope to maintain economic leadership in the world. This important book acts as a map, a street guide, for the trip away from smokestacks toward the next productivity boom. Napier and Nilsson are a new wave of business thinkers reinventing our path in the global market."

Heather Rae

"Napier and Nilsson's book addresses new and changing systems in a world that needs to change. I love the analogies they use, like football and the circus! These are two forms you don't imagine in the same room, yet Napier and Nilsson neatly fit them into the conceptual intrigue of their book."

Editorial Reviews

"…Defining 'discipline' is somewhat more complicated, and the authors break the term into three parts: an area on knowledge and competence that members of an organization need to develop over time (within-discipline expertise); openness to ideas that foster creativity (out-of-discipline thinking); and 'a systematic approach, or disciplined process, to generating, testing, and using ideas.' In the chapters that follow, the authors diligently define and illustrate these terms using a variety of stories and models. They must be credited with their own creative discipline in attempting to capture the essence of what it takes to succeed in an ever-changing global environment and the difficult task of defining and combining terms that are difficult to grasp. Recommended. Professional audiences." - Choice

From the Publisher