Innovating Minds: Rethinking Creativity to Inspire Change

by Wilma Koutstaal

$39.95

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Author: Wilma Koutstaal

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Hardcover:
ISBN 10: 0199316023
ISBN 13: 978-0199316021

A groundbreaking, scientific approach to creative thinking

From entrepreneurs to teachers, engineers to artists, almost everyone stands to benefit from becoming more creative. New ways of thinking, making, and imagining have the potential to bring about revolutionary changes to both our personal lives and society as a whole. And yet, the science behind creativity has largely remained a mystery, with few people aware of the ways we can optimize our own creative and innovative ideas.

Innovating Minds: Rethinking Creativity To Inspire Change offers a perspective, grounded in science, that allows us to achieve both individual and collective creative goals. Wilma Koutstaal and Jonathan Binks draw upon extensive research from brain, behavioral, and organizational sciences to present a unique five-part "thinking framework" in which ideas are continually refined and developed. Beyond scientific research, Innovating Minds also describes the everyday creative challenges of people from all walks of life, offering insights from dancers, scientists, designers, and architects.

The book shows that creativity is far from a static process; it is steeped with emotion and motivation, involving the dynamic interactions of our minds, brains, and environments. Accordingly, it challenges readers to put its material into use through thinking prompts, creativity cross-checks, and other activities.

Vibrant and engaging, Innovating Minds reveals a unique approach to harnessing creative ideas and putting them into action. It offers a fascinating exploration of the science of creativity along with new and valuable resources for becoming more innovative thinkers and doers.

Review

"Eminent psychologist Koutstaal and organization consultant Binks team up to present a program to enhance creativity based on neurobiology and psychological experimentation. The result is a five-part 'thinking framework': change the level of detail; attend to competing thoughts; allow room for both spontaneity and deliberateness in thinking; use sensing and feeling as well as cognition; and capture thoughts in some physical form." --Library Journal

"This book is useful for identifying a mosaic of creative approaches rather than suggesting that there is a single simplistic, but unrealistic, formula. Readers will benefit from a background in psychological research in understanding the nuances of the authors' presentation." --CHOICE

" [This book] would make an excellent text for an upper-level undergraduate class on creativity as part of either a psychology or an organizational science program, as it provides a nice mix of theoretical and applied material... Its up-to-date account of many facets of creative thinking will make it of significant interest to academics who study the psychology of creativity, organizational creativity, or related topics. Finally, because of its readability, I would also recommend it highly for anyone with an interest in how the creative process works or for someone who wants to kickstart his or her own creative juices."
--PsycCRITIQUES

About the Author

Wilma Koutstaal is a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, with a PhD in experimental psychology from Harvard University. She is the author of The Agile Mind (winner of the 2012 William James book Award from the American Psychological Association) published by Oxford University Press. In February 2015, she was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her work on memory, cognition, and creativity.

Jonathan Binks runs InnovatingMinds4Change (IM4Change), a consulting firm focusing on fostering organizational innovation and strategic renewal. Jon holds a JD from Queen's University Law School, with expertise in intellectual property and organizational change.

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Innovating Minds: Rethinking Creativity to Inspire Change