For as long I can remember, I’ve been an ideas guy. I even like the idea of ideas…I guess that makes me a meta-idea guy. But not just any ideas. Ideas that achieve the maximum impact with the minimum means. Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, “I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I’d give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Creative ideas are the main event of the imagination, and the simpler the better. I've written and published several books, hundreds of articles and blogs, and even had dozens of songs published. But by far my favorite creative accomplishment is winning the New Yorker cartoon caption contest in 2008.
I wrote...
Winning the Brain Game: Fixing the 7 Fatal Flaws of Thinking
Science confirms the distinction between the biological brain and the conscious mind. Each day, a game of mind versus matter plays out on a field defined by the problems we must solve. Most are routine, and don’t demand a more mindful approach. It’s when we’re faced with more difficult challenges that our thinking becomes vulnerable to brain patterns that can lead us astray.
In Winning the Brain Game, author and creative strategist Matthew E. May explains several “fatal flaws” of thinking. Calling on modern neuroscience and psychology to help explain these flaws, he blends in a field-tested set of “fixes” proven through hundreds of creative sessions to raise our thinking game to a more mindful level.
Creativity in Business was the book that started it all for me in terms of creativity in business. I had just graduated from The Wharton School with my MBA, and I had no idea that business creativity was even a thing. Or even a possibility. I thought they were entirely different worlds, and never the twain shall meet. In this book, authors Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers made me want to go take their course at Stanford. As soon as they started talking about business as art and silencing the “voice of judgment,” I was hooked.
This exploration of innovative thinking in companies of all kinds "shows us how creativity in business can enrich us, and those who work with us." -- Spencer Johnson, co-author, The One Minute Manager
I had been a fan of Dan Pink’s writing since he was on the staff of Fast Company and read his first book, Free Agent Nation. As I began my own publishing and speaking career in 2005, I had the pleasure of being on the same speaking docket as Dan. As I listened to him talk about A Whole New Mind, I knew I had to meet him and get that book. I did. To this day I constantly refer to my signed copy, stuffed full of Post-It notes marking all the amazing exercises and tools in this book.
This is a book that you have to read. A Whole New Mind is a groundbreaking look at how we should live our lives in a world turned upside down by rising affluence, the outsourcing of good jobs abroad, and the computerization of our lives a world fast shifting from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. Lawyers. Accountants. Radiologists. Software engineers. That's what our parents encouraged us to be when we grew up. But Mum and Dad were wrong. The future belongs to a very different kind of person - a person with a very different kind of mind.…
This book is a practitioner’s guide to applied creativity in business, from yet another Stanford University professor. What is it about Stanford? I learned Design Thinking at Stanford, and I’ve had the honor of spending time with Tina Seelig. In many respects, this book is volume two of Creativity in Business a few decades apart. She introduces a conceptual model she calls the Innovation Engine, which explains how creativity is produced on the inside…our “in-genius,”…but is then influenced by the outside world. For anyone looking to create something from scratch, this book is for you.
Is the ability to creatively tackle problems innate or can it be learned? Like most human traits, both answers are correct. Some people are inherently more innovative than others. But, just like maths, or writing, everyone can improve with practice. Tina Seelig, PhD teaches creativity every day in her courses on innovation at Stanford School of Engineering. After ten years of experience, she confidently asserts that not only can creativity be taught but that there are a clear set of tools, skills and approaches that can unlock anyone's creative potential.
In InGenius, Seelig reminds us that creativity is not just…
Roger Martin is a mentor. I learned how to think strategically from him, first-hand. In fact, I hated strategy until I met Roger. He is one of the brightest thinkers on the planet. I use his frameworks daily in my work. His concept of integrative thinking, taught while he was dean of the University of Toronto’s progressive Rotman School, is all about the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your head at once. This is the stuff of breakthrough. The challenge is to avoid either/or thinking when considering two different ideas and synthesize them into an altogether new concept that improves on both. It’s like alchemy for the mind.
If you want to be as successful as Jack Welch, Larry Bossidy, or Michael Dell, read their autobiographical advice books, right? Wrong, says Roger Martin in The Opposable Mind. Though following best practice can help in some ways, it also poses a danger: By emulating what a great leader did in a particular situation, you'll likely be terribly disappointed with your own results. Why? Your situation is different. Instead of focusing on what exceptional leaders do, we need to understand and emulate how they think. Successful businesspeople engage in what Martin calls integrative thinking creatively resolving the tension in opposing…
I love contrarian thinking. It’s by definition creative…new, novel, useful. That’s what David Burkus does with this book. There are a lot of conventional thoughts about creativity and the generation of innovative ideas that are held out as universal truths, but just aren’t. True, that is. David takes them all to task, pokes holes in them with science and logic and good old thoughtful insight, and dispels an entire family of mythology...misconceptions all relating to creative thinking: brainstorming, collaborating, incentivizing, and about a dozen more. Prepare to have much of your current understanding of creativity shaken.
How to get past the most common myths about creativity to design truly innovative strategies We tend to think of creativity in terms reminiscent of the ancient muses: divinely-inspired, unpredictable, and bestowed upon a lucky few. But when our jobs challenge us to be creative on demand, we must develop novel, useful ideas that will keep our organizations competitive. The Myths of Creativity demystifies the processes that drive innovation. Based on the latest research into how creative individuals and firms succeed, David Burkus highlights the mistaken ideas that hold us back and shows us how anyone can embrace a practical…
Coming from the perspective of a neurosurgeon, I have witnessed many successes and failures over more than four decades. I recognized decades ago that communication with patients at a level that involves emotions is a necessary part of being a complete physician. This involves being empathetic and, henceforth, digging deep to find the strength to be transparent, vulnerable, compassionate, understanding, and, when needed, forceful (some would call this paternalism). Although the five books I have chosen to highlight vary widely in content, they have one common theme – finding within us the will and wherewithal to succeed.
My book is a collection of monthly Editor-in-Chief letters to the readership of World Neurosurgery, a journal that I edit. Each essay is short and sweet. The letters were written for neurosurgeons but have been re-edited so that they apply to all human beings. They cover topics such as leadership, empathy, vulnerability, stress, burnout, and on and on…. These essays are relevant for all who strive to craft a better version of themselves.
Life lessons learned by the author during his 40+ year neurosurgery career are shared and translated into real-life scenarios. Between the covers are many lessons that are derived from the experiences of the author and then applied to all humans. The mastering of these lessons should translate into a sense of pride and satisfaction. In keeping with the theme of the book, this process should culminate in the feeling at the end of the day that ‘Today was, indeed, a good day.’
Today Was A Good Day: A Collection of Essays From The Heart Of A Neurosurgeon
About the Book Today Was A Good Day: A Collection of Essays From The Heart Of A Neurosurgeon features many topics that pertain to how neurosurgeons interact with others and how each of us can use introspection to modify how we are using tools and strategies such as empathy, respect, stress management, and much more. This book provides some insights into leadership, effective communication, and fulfillment from the perspective of a neurosurgeon, and it causes the reader to think about and consider many, many attributes of a leader. We all want to have a good day. This book provides strategies…
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