You may not like it, you may wish things were different, you may look fondly at the past, but none of this matters: the rules have changed. The financial meltdown and global recession of 2009, combined with globalization, rapid advances in technology and communications, population trends, geopolitical movements and a next-generation workforce have made the past irrelevant.”
With this premise, Josh Linkner, founder and chairman of ePrize, makes a convincing argument why the most important need in business today is creativity. His book, Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System To Drive Breakthrough Creativity, provides a bridge between the end of an era and the new one that is beginning.
Linkner makes the case that to survive in this new world you need to develop your creative skills, to become less a technician and more an artist. Careers, he argues, are being “dislodged and reinvented at a dizzying pace.” Only by adding value in the face of uncertainty can you prosper in this marketplace, Linkner says.
The author uses his background as an entrepreneur and as a jazz musician to explain his ideas on creativity. Just as jazz musicians expend great effort to develop their musical skills or “build chops,” so must every worker develops their individual creative capacity.
Linkner refers to Charlie Parker, the famous jazz musician of the 1940s, who was an amazing improviser. His improvisation was not simply free form, but instead used structure to release the musician’s creativity. Structure, says Linkner, enables creativity.
Most individuals and businesses don’t lack creativity, Linkner says. Instead, they lack a system to unleash it. He argues that the most important thing a company can do — support creativity — is often left to pure chance.
Disciplined Dreaming provides a system for creativity, a structure that allows everyone in the organization a means to develop creative ideas. It is an improvisational structure, one that both provides a system and allows for personal expression.
The disciplined dreaming process is divided into five steps:
Step 1: Ask. Simply put, disciplined dreaming begins by setting objectives to finding a creative solution to a specific problem. Three simple questions can lead to great breakthroughs: Why? What if? And why not?
Step 2: Prepare. Just as musicians warm up before a performance, workers benefit by being mentally poised for creativity.
“You have to be in the right frame of mind to free yourself from creative barriers and release your true creative potential,” Linkner writes. Warm ups can help release the blocks to creativity.
Step 3: Discover. Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis believed that musical creativity was the act of discovery. He felt music was already there, and his job was to discover it. The discovery phase is about uncovering creativity. For example, CEO Jon Citrin uses a technique called “the Blocker” to see his ideas from a different perspective. He assigns one member of his team to disagree with everything he says. This creates lively debate instead of a room full of agreement.
Step 4: Ignite. A forest doesn’t spontaneously combust all at once, Linkner points out. Instead it begins with a spark. Likewise, the creative solution to a major project doesn’t have to be imagined all at once. The creative process is nonlinear and may not be realized until the project is near completion.
Step 5: Launch. This final phase is where the analytical meets creativity, putting creative ideas into action. First, it recognizes that not every idea can be used, no matter how good it might be. Second, it involves setting metrics or measuring each idea for success.
Linkner’s ideas are not theoretical. Many he honed in founding ePrize, the largest interactive promotion agency in the world. One story he includes is found in the chapter on Step 4, “Ignite.” One afternoon, he shut down the phones and servers, announcing that he was “kidnapping the company.”
He then took the entire staff to a Best Buy store, giving each a $200 gift card with the specific instruction that they had to spend it immediately. The store broke into pandemonium as 300 employees started running down the aisles. For years, employees talked about the event and how it cemented the sense that they worked for a creative, fun company.
Linkner’s easy-to-read style and his exercises, tools and examples make this book an excellent resource on creativity. His interweaving of stories both from his business success and his background as a jazz musician makes for good reading.
As the economy continues its tumultuous process and businesses continue to change, the need for creative structure will only continue to grow. Disciplined Dreaming provides the structure for a creative edge.