Institutions too often focus their energy preserving the problem to which they are a solution than to innovate their way to success.

You don't often see the words "Discipline" and "Dreaming" in the same sentence. But I believe this duality is critically important to win in both business and life. Dreaming without discipline is fantasy land. Discipline without dreaming creates rigid and stifling bureaucracies. Having a process to enable the creative process will help liberate the creativity that lives within every organization and individual.

We can no longer rely on the rules of the past to win.

Anyone can notice wrong answers. It takes the creative person to notice the wrong questions.

There's an old saying - you'll never hit a target you can't see. Defining a Creative Challenge is an important step in focusing your creativity toward a specific problem or opportunity. A Creative Challenge can be something big such as a revolutionary new product or a cure for disease. However, it can also be much smaller such as a new package design or an efficiency gain in a manufacturing process. It starts with clearly defining the challenge and desired outcome.

When you ask "why", "what if" and "why not" you force yourself to explore what's possible and not just what is.

People equate job titles to levels of creativity. We think that musicians are creative while accountants are not. Job title has nothing to do with human creativity. In fact, we all have enormous creative potential. Even those that often state with authority that "I'm not creative." With a systematic approach to building creative capacity, we all have the opportunity to create and leave a mark on the world.