<DIV><B>Turn team members into innovators</B><BR><BR>Most organizations approach innovation as if it were a sideline activity. Every so often employees are sent to ?Brainstorm Island”: an off-site replete with trendy lectures, creative workshops, and overenthusiastic facilitators. But once they return, it’s back to business as usual.<BR><BR>Innovation experts Paddy Miller and Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg suggest a better approach. They recommend that leaders at all levels become ?innovation architects,” creating an ecosystem in which people engage in key innovation behaviors as part of their daily work.<BR><BR>In short, this book is about getting to a state of ?innovation as usual,” where regular employees?in jobs like finance, marketing, sales, or operations?make innovation happen in a way that’s both systemic and sustainable.<BR><BR>Instead of organizing brainstorming sessions, idea jams, and off-sites that rarely result in success, leaders should guide their people in what the authors call the ?5 + 1 keystone behaviors” of innovation: focus, connect, tweak, select, stealthstorm, (and the + 1) persist:<BR><BR>? <B>Focus beats freedom</B>: Direct people to look only for ideas that matter to the business<BR>? <B>Insight comes from the outside</B>: Urge people to connect to new worlds<BR>? <B>First ideas are flawed</B>: Challenge people to tweak and reframe their initial ideas<BR>? <B>Most ideas are bad ideas</B>: Guide people to select the best ideas and discard the rest<BR>? <B>Stealthstorming rules</B>: Help people navigate the politics of innovation<BR>? <B>Creativity is a choice</B>: Motivate everyone to persist in the five keystone behaviors<BR><BR>Using examples from a wide range of companies such as Pfizer, Index Ventures, Lonza, Go Travel, Prehype, DSM, and others, <I>Innovation as Usual</I> lights the way toward embedding creativity in the DNA of the workplace.<br><BR>So cancel that off-site. Instead, read <I>Innovation as Usual</I>?and put innovation at the core of your business.<BR></DIV>