THE BUSINESS OF INNOVATION: Managing the Corporate Imagination for Maximum Results

This guide's weakest advice concerns the specific area in which many managers need the most help: how exactly does one spur corporate creativity? To their credit, the authors—both consultants—suggest helpful focusing techniques (ask questions like "What should we be creating; which customers should we target and how should we compete?") and offer strategies for applying systems thinking to the innovation process. After that, readers are left largely on their own to follow a step-by-step process that oddly avoids specifics for getting the most out of any idea that happens to surface. The logical but extremely dense prose is somewhat mitigated by useful chapter summaries. Illus. (Sept.)