Quantity:

More Buying Choices

31 used & new from �13.00

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share your own customer images

Search inside this book

Managing Creative People: Lessons for Leadership in the Ideas Economy (Hardcover)

by Gordon Torr (Author)

4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

RRP:	�24.99
Price:	�16.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save:	�8.00 (32%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Only 1 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, November 24? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details

24 new from �14.41 7 used from �13.00

Other Editions:	RRP:	Our Price:	Other Offers:
Unknown Binding			Order it used

Special Offers and Product Promotions

Illuminate your book with the innovative Philips LED reading light--exclusive to Amazon.co.uk. Shop now.

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production

by Charles Leadbeater

3.9 out of 5 stars (8) �6.47

The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas

by John Howkins

5.0 out of 5 stars (3) �6.46

Management and Creativity: From Creative Industries to Creative Management

by Chris Bilton

�21.19

The Future of Management

by Gary Hamel

4.9 out of 5 stars (7) �13.85

Five Minds for the Future

by Howard Gardner

4.6 out of 5 stars (5) �7.15

› Explore similar items

Product details

Hardcover: 318 pages
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (11 April 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0470726458
ISBN-13: 978-0470726457
Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.6 x 2.8 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 211,907 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#80 in Books > Business, Finance & Law > Management > Management Skills > Creativity

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

See Complete Table of Contents

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

(What is this?)

Kiss The Frog opens new browser window

www.kissthefrognow.com - Corporate Storytelling & Creative Leadership

Product Description

Review

"a breath of fresh air". (Financial Times, Thursday 10th April 2008)

Review

"a breath of fresh air". (Financial Times, Thursday 10th April 2008)

“…readable, provocative… Give it a try.”Management Today July 2008

“…Harris outlines the means by which he was able to harness technology platforms previously unseen in the retail banking industry…”The Banker July 2008

"...important insights and thought–provoking philosophy for managing creative people." (Journal of Innovation Management, July 2009)

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

advertising(1)

creativity(1)

human resources management(1)

See all 4 tags...

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	92% buy the item featured on this page: Managing Creative People: Lessons for Leadership in the Ideas Economy 4.4 out of 5 stars (5) �16.99
	2% buy How to Manage: The Art of Making Things Happen 4.5 out of 5 stars (6) �7.76
	2% buy How to Lead: What You Actually Need to Do to Manage, Lead and Succeed 4.4 out of 5 stars (17) �7.11
	2% buy The One Minute Manager 3.9 out of 5 stars (39) �4.37

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Pleasant Surprise, 30 May 2008

By	Perpetual Skeptic "PS" (Hampshire, UK) - See all my reviews

Having read all of the literature I can afford to buy on Innovation and Creativity over a period of decades, so much of which is utter tosh (though sincerly well-meant tosh, in most cases) I can honestly say this book is really very good.

It draws up a framework for managing creative people that is not only very lucid, but also exceptionally useful. Coming from a background of R&D and Software Engineering Management, where Agile methods are all the rage, this book helped me understand what does and doesn't work about Agile methods and why that should be. It also, for me at least, dovetails nicely with books like Kandinsky's classic "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" or Hofmann's "Search for the Real", in explaining the essential differences between craft and fine art, which for me told me all about what went wrong in the Bauhaus, or at least wasn't fully realised.

Where I disagree with the author is in his denigration of the sincerity of the practitioners of Creative Problem Solving techniques. My view is that they didn't really know any better and that these techniques can be useful, if only to wring what creativity there is from the ordinary mortal who may lack the confidence to express it. But like the author intimates, no amount of creative problem solving is going to make you more creative. That would be like expecting training to turn right handers into proficient left handers. Ain't gonna happen.

What the author's amusing and somewhat forthright style does is illuminate some uncomfortable truths about toxic work environments and white collar sweat shops that currently attempt to use creativity like it was some kind of commodity (baked beans, not statues, in the author's words).

I really liked the chapter on 5th Exit companies and the Maze. Buy the book, if you have any interest at all in making new things happen, be you a Donatello, a Cosimo or just curious.

Highly recommended and readable in a single sitting, as was my reading.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tour de force on organizational creativity, 29 April 2008

By	Steven Rawlinson (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

On the shoulders of brilliant thinkers before him, and often running counter to their positions, Gordon Torr, in his book "Managing Creative People", has brought forward, in his own refreshing, thought provoking and humorous writing style, some compelling new ideas about the nature of human creativity and how to make it work in organizational structures such as businesses, government agencies and non-profit groups.

It's hard to do justice to this book in a review... but after reading it I can say with conviction that if you work with or manage creative people, or you want to work with or manage creative people, then you should read it, perhaps several times, and take copious notes. I'm reading it for the second time and am catching a lot of valuable insight that I missed on the first go-around. Get ready for some ideas that will run counter to everything you've learned so far. As Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Having worked in the design and advertising industry as a creative for most of my adult life, I have to say that I concur with Gordon's thesis that creativity and creative output has suffered greatly for the last 100 years or more. And it doesn't seem to be getting any better. One only has to look at the current creative output in almost any discipline, with few notable exceptions, to see how low the bar has been set. As Gordon points out in his book, the machine of the industrial revolution has ground up many of our creative workers into sausages and unless there is wide spread corporate, societal and governmental change I fear we will continue down this path for many years to come.

Interestingly, I've noticed similar or parallel arguments cropping up in other books and articles (the collective unconscious at work?). Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae, for instance, speaks of how many companies lack big ideas and innovation in their DNA because of their fear of changing the status quo. Other studies point out that companies using rigorous quality and performance standards such as Six Sigma and ISO 9000 can in some cases hamper the output of creative individuals hired to perform their magic (3M, for instance, after implementing Six Sigma principles, is returning to their famous "3M Way" and policy of allowing workers to spend 15% of their time on independent projects).

Some adjectives, phrases and words to that come to mind when reviewing this book: refreshing, thorough, exhaustive, humorous, enlightening, brilliant, scrupulous, disturbing, compelling, thought provoking, topical, counter to popular opinion, a call to action, just in time (hopefully).

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Be proud, be angry, be more humane, 16 Feb 2009

By	C. Charity (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If I were interviewing for a job and saw this book on the desk of my prospective manager I'd immediately lower my salary request. Anybody would be desperate to work for the leader who benefits from Gordon Torr's wisdom, subscribes to his vision and shares his outrage. This book will not just make its readers learned and enlightened - it will leave them proud, angry, more humane - and desperate for change in the creative industries.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 5 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for Creative people
It's a shame the publishers didn't call it what it is - The Suit's Guide to Massaging Creative Egos. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Mr. Faisal Ahmed

2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title
This isn't really a "how to" book on managing creatives. In fact, there's very little about management at all (which the author acknowledges fairly early on in the book)... Read more

Published 15 months ago by ozcanuck

› See all 5 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }