Out Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes

Out Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes

by G. Shawn Hunter, Tim Sanders
Released August 2013
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118505229

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Book description

Drive change in your organization for a competitive advantage

From CEOs to marketing departments, company leaders are searching for ways to leap-frog their businesses to the leading edge, imprint their brand on the public consciousness, and become more relevant to the ever-changing global marketplace—to transform their businesses into 21st-century competitive game-changers. Out Think explains how to stand out, to express creativity, and lead companies into the creative age. To lead and contribute tangible services, products, and social value, companies need to build new capabilities, new risk thresholds, and social ecosystems that foster emerging behaviors that lead to competitive advantage.

Out Think: How to Lead a Culture of Results-Driven Innovation is both an idea-based and action-based work. Each chapter focuses on a key idea, behavior, or mindset and illustrates these concepts through proprietary interviews with business leaders.

  • Describes techniques to show how the shift or idea can be implemented, with real-world examples

  • Includes assessments, exercises and actionable messaging throughout the book

  • Based on the author's unparalleled access over more than a decade to executives and thought-leaders through his work at Skillsoft, a pioneer in the field of learning

Through interviews and collaboration with thought-leaders across industries, Out Think gathers insights, stories, and actionable take-aways, with an emphasis on results, that can drive the change that leaders want and need in their organizations.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Praise for Out Think
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Foreword
  7. Introduction
    1. Then
    2. Now
  8. Chapter 1: Marketquake: Moving beyond Arrested Decay
    1. Creativity vs. Innovation
    2. The Innovation Gap Shrinks
    3. Gen Y Turns to Entrepreneurialism
    4. Innovation Demands Changes in Organizational Culture
    5. Consumers Change
    6. Innovation Is the Answer: Out Think Competitors
    7. Let's Recap
  9. Chapter 2: Trust: Establish the Engine of Leadership
    1. Work from the Bottom Up
    2. Teach Everyone How the Money Flows
    3. Use Emotional Persuasion for Change
    4. Speak the Truth
    5. Lead with Integrity and Honest Intention
    6. Trust What You Love to Do
    7. Leave People More Energized
    8. Let's Recap
  10. Chapter 3: Inquiry: Provoke with Questions, Not Answers
    1. Start with a Growth Mindset
    2. Get Curious
    3. Exercise Divergent Thinking
    4. Choose Optimism
    5. Close the Organizational Inquiry Gap
    6. Narrow Choices
    7. Let's Recap
  11. Chapter 4: Exploration: Go to the Woodshed
    1. Accomplish More through Grit
    2. Put a Stake in the Ground
    3. Allow Time for Focusing
    4. Mine the Organization for Expertise
    5. Reinforce Company Culture by Capturing Internal Voices of Distinction
    6. Deal with Innovation Blockers
    7. Let's Recap
  12. Chapter 5: Aspiration: Dream Well—You May Find Yourself There
    1. Share Truth
    2. Make it Personal and Heighten Aspirations
    3. Offer Hope
    4. Focus on the Team, Not the Boss
    5. Play to an Individual's Aspiration and Strengths
    6. Expect the Best of Everyone
    7. Develop the Guru in Others
    8. Develop Higher Aspirations as an Organization
    9. Let's Recap
  13. Chapter 6: Edge: Embrace New Kinds of Risk
    1. Find the Edge
    2. Redefine Your Limits
    3. Praise Effort and Grit, Not Talent
    4. Embrace Social Risk
    5. Let's Recap
  14. Chapter 7: Connection: Collaborate to Innovate
    1. The Culture Defines the Outcome
    2. Build the Team through Shared Vision and Personal Engagement
    3. Allow Risk and Demand Accountability
    4. Let's Recap
  15. Chapter 8: Mash-up: Borrow Brilliance
    1. Borrow Brilliance
    2. Emphasize Weak Ties
    3. Embrace Positive Deviance
    4. Look Globally for Talent
    5. Engage the Customer
    6. Mash the Human Factor into Your Work
    7. Let's Recap
  16. Chapter 9: Action: Get Moving or Accept the Consequences
    1. Curb Your Awesomeness
    2. Fail Forward
    3. When to Trust, but Qualify, Your Gut Instinct
    4. Let's Recap
  17. Chapter 10: Signature: Make It Your Own
    1. Go beyond Best Practices
    2. Embrace Your Organization's Identity
    3. Start with Good Intentions
    4. Invite New Voices to the Table—Then Listen
    5. Fuel Passions
    6. Collaborate with Customers, but Be True to Your Vision
    7. Avoid Cognitive Bias by Dropping Anchors Carefully
    8. Avoid the Poisoning Effect of Power
    9. Let's Recap
  18. Chapter 11: Purpose: Connect with “Why”
    1. Understand a Greater Why with the Right Mindset
    2. Let Purpose Drive Innovation
    3. Return to Your Vision When Things Go Wrong
    4. Connect Individuals to Purpose
    5. Let's Recap
  19. Chapter 12: Sustaining the Innovative Mindset
    1. Forget Trends and Keep Innovating
    2. Embrace Change and Risk Taking
    3. Be Prepared for Creativity
    4. Put It All Together
    5. Let's Recap
  20. Notes
  21. Bibliography
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. About the Author
  24. Index

Product information

  • Title: Out Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes
  • Author(s): G. Shawn Hunter, Tim Sanders
  • Release date: August 2013
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118505229