The 60-Second Business Bookshelf: “Disciplined Dreaming”

The book: Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity
Author: Josh Linkner
Jossey-Bass, 2011
256 pages, $26.95

The proven system to drive breakthrough creativity that Josh Linkner promises requires highly developed mental and emotional discipline, in a five-step process he calls Disciplined Dreaming.

The author interviewed more than 200 people whose creativity has apparently driven their success, sharing what he learned in this book. After making the case for creativity in the first chapter and then explaining the Disciplined Dreaming system, Linkner organizes his material in a sequence of five steps: Ask, Prepare, Discover, Ignite, and Launch. He devotes one or two chapters to each. He concludes with an epilogue and two appendices, which rebut six common myths that inhibit creativity and provide additional exercises to get your own juices flowing, respectively.

Linkner explains how to define a creativity challenge (answering an important question or solving a serious problem), prepare for the process you can undertake for the challenge, discover various avenues to reach an answer or solution, ignite forces with various techniques to generate an abundance of creative ideas, and finally launch the process to make the best of your ideas a reality and meet the challenge.

Those who are curious to know the nature and extent of their readiness to embark on the Disciplined Dreaming process will be delighted to know that Linkner includes a self-assessment for Building Your Creativity Chops, with detailed explanations of the results.

I commend him on his eloquent and rigorous examination of the immensely complicated issues associated with terms such as creativity, innovation, co-creation, integrative thinking, and inspiration. Whenever possible, he anchors information, insights, and recommendations in a real-world context with which most readers can identify.

Linkner brilliantly integrates what he learned from his numerous interviews with what he has gleaned from his own observations and (yes) disciplined dreaming. He has prepared his readers well for a journey only they can take. I join him in expressing Bon voyage! to those who embark on it.

Want to read more? See Bob Morris' full review of this book at his blog, Blogging about Business, at bobmorris.biz/category/book-review. You can also find his interview with Josh Linkner there.

Morris is a Dallas-based content consultant, an avid reader who is passionate about learning, and a prolific business book reviewer for Amazon's websites. Many companies have serious problems with accelerating leadership development or revitalizing stale, dull websites. I solve those problems, he says.