Creativity Unlimited: Thinking Inside the Box for Business Innovation

Book description

Flying in the face of current thinking, this book suggests that we do not need to 'think outside the box' in our quest for creativity, rather we should rethink the way we look 'inside the box'. This idea will resonate only too well with those who have endeavoured to be creative by thinking outside that box, only to have their attempts scuppered by the constraints of bureaucracy and organizational politics. Instead of fighting a losing battle, the author suggests that creativity should be worked at within the constraints of the organizational box, but that space needs to be grown and allowed to be shaken up. Only by experimenting, mutating and finding new directions can you uncover business paths that lead to success. The reader is encouraged not to free themselves from all their knowledge and experiences (the thinking outside the box method) but to use their knowledge and experience in new ways.

The book is structured around three key steps:

  • Expanding the box: so that the pieces of the puzzle in it can move around more freely

  • Filling the box: with even more knowledge, and how to get these new pieces of the puzzle to connect with the existing ones

  • Shaking the box: so that the pieces fall into new places and form new patterns.

The book shows that anybody can be creative.

The creative methods suggested in the book will be linked to real business examples from which techniques have been developed to help their implementation. Numerous exercises and 'eye-openers' form part of the practical implementation of Micael Dahlén's ideas. The book is framed by models and concepts of how creativity works (the creative process, the creative person and the creative result) and what its effects are.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Chapter 1: Why this book?
  8. Part I: It's About Success
    1. Chapter 2: Why creativity?
    2. Chapter 3: Are you creative?
    3. Chapter 4: Why is creativity so important?
      1. Leaking buckets
      2. Market ceilings
      3. Efficient complexity
      4. Happiness
    4. Chapter 5: Isn't creativity dangerous?
      1. Does the company lose definition or credibility?
      2. Wasted money?
  9. Part II: Think Inside the Box
    1. Chapter 6: What is creativity?
      1. Creativity defined
      2. Myths about creativity
    2. Chapter 7: The creative result
    3. Chapter 8: The creative process
      1. Knowledge
      2. Motivation
      3. Corporate governance
      4. Thought tunnels and riverbeds
      5. Randomness
      6. The use of knowledge
    4. Chapter 9: The creative person
      1. Flow of ideas
      2. Risk-taking
      3. Paradoxes
    5. Chapter 10: Thinking inside the box
      1. Shaking the box
      2. Expanding the box
      3. Filling the box
  10. Part III: Expanding the Box
    1. Chapter 11: The four walls of the box
      1. Get smarter through training: about the exercises
    2. Chapter 12: The first wall: conventions and rules
      1. How to recognize a rule or convention
      2. Selling bricks
      3. Coat hanger: (im)possible tasks
      4. Improving on scissors
      5. The ping-pong ball in the steel pipe
    3. Chapter 13: The second wall: common sense
      1. Man with bow-tie stuck in the elevator
      2. The rope round the Earth
      3. The tennis tournament
      4. The letters
      5. The dots
    4. Chapter 14: The third wall: physiology
      1. The monk
      2. The folded paper exercise
      3. Answering the telephone with the ‘wrong’ hand
      4. Professor Balthazar
    5. Chapter 15: The fourth wall: consciousness
      1. RAT
      2. Changing details
      3. Quick and slow solution
      4. Anti-jeopardy
  11. Part IV: Filling the Box
    1. Chapter 16: There's no such thing as ‘useless’ knowledge
      1. There is no ‘useless’ knowledge
    2. Chapter 17: The brain is lazy
    3. Chapter 18: The power in brands
    4. Chapter 19: Associations
    5. Chapter 20: The context rules
  12. Part V: Shaking the Box
    1. Chapter 21: Preparations for the final step
      1. Two ways of shaking the box
    2. Chapter 22: Shaking the box side to side
      1. Change the brand voice
      2. Do the Following
      3. Change the category voice
      4. Change the size of the company
      5. Change the name
      6. Enhance ‘bad’ characteristics
      7. Enhance specifics
      8. Communications RAT
      9. When obstacles become solutions
    3. Chapter 23: Shaking the box up and down
      1. Random verbs
      2. Another time of day
      3. Break the assumption
      4. Not-Definitions
      5. Product RAT
      6. Associations squared
      7. Change category
      8. Next customer
  13. Part VI: Congratulations: You've Become Smarter
    1. Chapter 24: Are you a creative business innovator?
      1. Only the beginning
  14. Further Reading
    1. It's about success
    2. Think inside the box
    3. Expanding the box
    4. Filling the box
  15. Index

Product information

  • Title: Creativity Unlimited: Thinking Inside the Box for Business Innovation
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: July 2009
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9780470770849