Retail Price: $24.95 LS Price: $16.95 You Save: $8.00 (32%) Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours. Format: Hardcover, 272pp. ISBN: 9781118115718 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: December 20, 2011 Average Customer Review:

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New tools for tapping the creativity of teams and achieving breakthrough results

The Innovative Team is an engaging business fable that reveals the impact our underlying work style preferences have on our teams and their results. The authors present a breakthrough thinking process for developing successful teams. They introduce a uniquely effective set of tools built on FourSight, a measure of problem-solving preferences field-tested by top consultants, which can help anyone from professionals to novices solve problems and achieve performance breakthroughs. FourSight enables teams to understand their patterns of thinking and manage themselves more deliberately toward accomplishing a goal.

• Written as a business fable that recounts the story of a team's journey from dysfunctional to high functioning
• Outlines a new and effective set of tools for enhanced team performance
• Details the four stages of a dynamic breakthrough thinking process

The Innovative Team offers a great resource for management and leadership development professionals, team leaders, and anyone interested in kick-starting innovation in their workplaces and lives.

"The power of a good story to teach us important life and business lessons is strikingly evident in this enjoyable, realistic, and practical business tale. It's two books in one, really—both a fictional story and a factual tutorial on how you can move a group intentionally through the important stages of innovation. When you read The Innovative Team you'll travel down the path of breakthrough thinking and experience the many twists and turns, ups and downs, detours and speed bumps of a group that's challenged to solve a tough business problem. At the completion of the journey, you'll be treated to a master class in creative problem solving. You'll learn practical tools, valuable tips, and important concepts that you can apply to your own innovative team. It's a must-read for all leaders who want to improve the ways in which their groups find new and sustainable solutions to the ever-increasing challenges that organizations face."

—Jim Kouzes, coauthor, The Leadership Challenge; Dean's Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University

"Keeping the faith on new ideas, especially when they are genre breaking or truly innovative, is never easy. This story of a group of colleagues trying to do exactly that reveals the struggles occurring daily in organizations aiming to innovate. It offers insights into the frustrations of bringing about innovation, while providing readers with practical ways to drive creativity through their business."

—Linda Green, development executive, The British Broadcasting Corporation

"We live in an age of unprecedented and rapidly accelerating change, in which everyone wants to be innovative but few can define what that actually means or describe how to get there. Through simple language and storytelling, this book creates awareness of the creative resources in your organization and offers a proven framework to harness them and achieve real, measurable results. Highly recommended!"

—Dr. Casimer DeCusatis, IBM Corporation; recipient of the 2011 Sigma Xi Walston Chubb Award for Innovation and the 2002 Mensa Copper Black Award for Creative Achievement

Chris Grivas is an organizational and leadership development consultant focused on increasing the creative capacity of individuals, teams, and organizations. His clients have included Ernst & Young, Connecticut Children's Medical Center, and New York University, among others. Gerard J. Puccio is department chair and professor at the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College and partner in FourSight, a training company and publisher of FourSight: Your Thinking Profile. He is an accomplished writer, speaker, and consultant to Fisher-Price, British Broadcasting Corporation, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kraft, and others.

	Acknowledgments	ix
	About the Authors	xi
	Foreword	xv
	Introduction	1
	Part 1 The Story
1	We Have a Problem	13
2	JustWhat Kind of Duck AreWe Dealing with Here?	27
3	The Sum of the Parts	33
4	The Need and theWay Out	41
5	Thinking About Thinking	59
6	Mapping a Minefield	67
7	The Power of a Good Question	77
8	FromWild toWorkable	89
9	Combining the Unlikely	99
10	Be CarefulWhat YouWish For	109
11	Preserving the Novelty	121
12	Priming the Pump	127
13	The Pieces Come Together	139
14	What’s the POINt?	153
15	Assisting Acceptance	163
16	Sealing the Deal	181
	Epilogue Where Are They Now?	187
	Part 2 Exploring the Four Creative Thinking Styles
17	Applying the Framework	193
18	Clarifying the Situation	195
19	Generating Ideas	205
20	Developing Solutions	215
21	Implementing Plans	225
22	The Combination of Preferences Within People	231
23	Creating Conditions for Success	237

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