The Innovative Mindset

Preface

For more than 15 years I have been speaking about, or conducting training sessions on, innovation for leading corporations across the globe. Clients always tell me during initial calls that they are interested in finding ways to increase innovation in their organizations. If I've heard the question once, I've heard it a thousand times: “What can we do to make our company more innovative?”

Individuals who see me speak or people I run into in my day-to-day life often ask me another question. Whether I'm sitting next to someone on an airplane, serving on a committee for a nonprofit organization, or talking with other parents from my children's school, students in our school of improvisation, or audience members at our theater, people always ask me a little bit about my life and what I do. After we chat a bit they want to know: “What are some things I can do to make myself more innovative?”

This book will try to help answer both questions. Like many of you, my life has been mostly a journey. Many of the stops on the journey have been quite unexpected; my successes and failures have been unpredictable at best. I'm a different person than I was 15 years ago. I have learned more than I've taught and I made some plans, most of which changed. I've been working hard to be a good husband, a good father, and a contributing member of my community, to build a business, and to share what I have learned about innovation with the thousands of people I speak to and train each year. This ...