Innovative, original ideas are a company's most powerful competitive advantage. Nathan Mhyrvold, former chief technology officer at Microsoft, has said that a great employee is worth 1,000 times more than an average one simply because of his or her ideas. In Ideaship, the sequel to his bestselling book, How to Get Ideas, Jack Foster shifts from how individuals spark their new ideas to how to unleash the creative genius of an entire organization. To create an idea-prone workforce, Foster proposes a totally new concept of leadership: "ideaship." Leaders shouldn't be spending their time obsessing over profits or sales or quality or service. Instead, they should devote most of their energies to making the office a place where creative ideas flow, where the workforce truly believes in its ability to brilliantly solve any problem put before it. Above all, where it's fun to work. With energy and humor, Foster draws on over thirty-five years as creative director of major advertising agencies--organizations whose only purpose is to constantly generate ideas--to offer dozens of fun, fast, often surprising nuggets of practical advice on how to create an environment where innovation and fresh thinking thrive. He reveals why you should only hire people you like, insist employees take vacations whether they want to or not, why efficiency is sometimes inefficient, and how sometimes you can accomplish more by playing the fool instead of the capital L "Leader."
Ideaship spells out proven ways to encourage creativity, simply and clearly and cogently, without a lot of charts and graphs and formulas and acronyms and statistics and fillers. It flips traditional leadership on its head and shows how simple acts of compassion, trust, and generosity of spirit, as well as some seemingly zany actions, can unleash unexpected, vital bursts of creativity.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
This simple book is more worthy of being a Readers Digest article.:
This is a simple book with a straightforward message; keep the work environment positive and challenging. The messages are good ones. There's not too much to the book beyond a series of motivational thoughts. In theory they are certainly good concepts to target. Just about everything that needs to be said can be read in the table of contents. The idealism is positive. I disagree with taking employee trust to the degree of not verifying that people are not misbehaving. The example given of a manager not... more info
The Power of Simplicity:
This is a splendid book and a must for all Leaders and Managers. A lot of stuff recommended by Jack Foster are not only applicable to business situations, but also to life in general. Very easy to read, the book describes the simple stuff that we can do to generate ideas, and the author does it in a ridiculously simple way.
It's not a matter of doing something massive in order to achieve great results. It's all about having a heart, and you will get the maximum output with very little effort.
Turn on the light bulbs!:
In a word, OUTSTANDING! Ideaship is a must read for all supervisors and managers who want to assist their people in becoming more vital to their organizations. I only wish I had this book in my hands years ago... but it's okay, I've got it now!
Jack Foster's insights are practical, humorous, and so very down-to-earth. He offers such a fresh approach to even the very basics of motivation and creativity. You're gonna love the many new words Jack will add to your vocabulary too. You might even become... more info
My Problems with "Ideaship".:
I have two problems with "Ideaship". The first is with the subtitle, "How to Get Ideas Flowing in Your Workplace". No question, this book is certainly a valuable guide for that, but it's a lot more. A few chapters into the book, it occured to me that the suggestions Mr. Foster was outling to generate ideas are, surprisingly, even more valuable for generating meaningful personal relationships--in or out of the workplace. You needn't be on the employment rolls to benefit from "Ideaship".
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