The Creative Mindset: Mastering the Six Skills That Empower Innovation

Written by Jeff DeGraff and Staney DeGraff

Narrated by Caroline Miller

"Jeff and Staney emphasize that small acts of creativity can have huge consequences and that ordinary people can do extraordinary things if they can see the opportunities in front of them."
-Mitch Jacobson, Executive Director, Austin Technology Incubator, UT Blackstone LaunchPad, University of Texas at Austin

Nearly all of today's major innovation workshops and programs call on organizations to drive innovation. What they miss is that innovation comes from the personal creativity of individuals. And creativity doesn't require an advanced education or technical skills-all employees can be creative. Often, all they lack is a fitting mindset and the right tools.

The Creative Mindset brings how-to advice, tools, and techniques from two master innovators who have taught and worked with over half of all Fortune 500 companies. Jeff and Staney DeGraff introduce six essential creative-thinking skills that can be easily mastered with limited practice and remembered as the acronym CREATE: Concentrate, Replicate, Elaborate, Associate, Translate, and Evaluate. These six skills, sequenced as steps, simplify and summarize the most important research on creative thinking and draw on over thirty years of real-world application in some of the most innovative organizations in the world. It's time to rethink the way we make innovation happen. As the spirit of chef Gusteau proclaims in the Pixar classic Ratatouille, "Anyone can cook."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Sep 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781663740984

Jeff DeGraff

Jeff DeGraff has been a professor, for 30+ years, at one of the leading business schools in the world, the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Staney DeGraff and Jeff together run their consulting firm, Innovatrium, which offers education, training, and consulting to major corporate and government clients.