?WhatIf! How to Start a Creative Revolution at Work [Paperback]

This is a smashing little book for anyone who's ever wondered how to have more fun at work and profit by it. The authors run a creative consultancy aimed at helping businesses to move outside the proverbial tramlines. The book shows just how, with activities, games, insights and general lunacy. The basic message is that creativity is like gold dust but it needs to be practised and worked at in organisations. It needs to become part of the organisational furniture.

How to Start a Creative Revolution may not deliver exactly what it says in the title (publishers hype perhaps) but it will allow you to do some useful thinking. The basic premise is that there are six main ways of being more creative--from thinking about things afresh, to greenhousing (letting good ideas grow), to bravery (making them happen). In each chapter the authors give a range of case studies that help to ground the activities in a sense of reality (apparently one client managed a breakthrough in their advertising for toothpaste when they started seeing their product as liquid teeth!).

As impressive as the ideas and the activities is the style the book is written in (you'll probably find you do many of the things they suggest already). Where many management books are drier than a diver's underpants this has freshness and zing about it. It keeps you reading and it keeps you smiling too. --Steve Morris

?What If! delivers powerful insights that demolish the myths of creativity and help you not just change the way you think but change the way you do.

Dave Allan co–founded ?What If! in 1992 with Matt Kingdon. Prior to that Dave helped set up the European innovation process of Unilever subsidiary Lever Brothers. He has led over 100 innovation projects which have helped inspire ?What If!’s tools of creative thinking. Matt Kingdon marketed Unilever brands in the UK and Thailand. His focus was new product development. Latterly he was responsible for the introduction of Unilever’s brand portfolio in various emerging markets around the world. He has designed and facilitated breakthrough creative workshops in numerous categories and countries. Kristina Murrin studied Psychology at Cambridge University and later whilst at Procter and Gamble in the UK and USA explored what makes some managers more creative than others. She joined ?What If! in 1994 and led the development of ?What If!’s creative training programmes. Daz Rudkin joined ?What If! from Unilever in 1994 where he worked as a marketer and led organisational change projects. He now leads a team of consultants researching and advising on innovation culture around the world.

Doing It. Not talking about it

This book is about starting a creative revolution at work. But what sort of revolution?

Instinctively, we all know creativity at work is important. If creativity sees the commercial light of day, if it actually happens, that's innovation. And to most of us innovation means growth. To some extent, then, all our business futures depend on our ability to be creative at work.

Important stuff, but hardly new. We've been told about the need for innovation - about the need for a creative revolution - for years now. Not just in the press. Chairmen and CEOs regularly extol the virtues of innovation. For shareholders it's a message that falls on eager ears. What's missing in most cases is the practical follow-through. Companies keep talking about the 'why we need it' without the 'how are we going to do it?'

Why is this? Most businesspeople accept that innovation (and so creativity) is 'important', but it's rarely classified as 'urgent'. The bottom line benefits of a creative act may not be felt for one, two or even three years. This does not easily fit the short-term focus of modern business. Moreover, creativity is one of those 'easy to talk about but hard to do' activities. It can be intimidating. Many people put it on a pedestal. They shake their heads and say 'it's not for them'.

There are other convenient reasons not to engage with the practical nuts and bolts of creativity There is always something else potentially more pressing. 'I need to get the core business sorted before I can even think about creativity' 'If only I could recruit more people.' 'If only I had more funds.' 'I need more time to think.'