



Innovation You
Four Steps to Becoming New and Improved
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In today’s frenetic, uncertain world, the “same old, same old” routines are perfect ways to go nowhere fast. What has worked for you before—professionally or personally—no longer gets results. Whether you’ve been downsized, reached the end of a long relationship, or found yourself questioning where you are in life, it’s clear you need to change. To innovate. Make it new. Make yourself new. Now, in this invaluable book, the world-renowned “Dean of Innovation,” Jeff DeGraff, shares his tried-and-true techniques on how to reinvent yourself—creatively and with maximum impact.
Innovation You reveals DeGraff’s unique four-step program to bolster your ingenuity and remake your life. From forging ahead in a new career to losing weight to finally pursuing that long-held dream, DeGraff’s strategies are effective and easy to follow. Inside you will learn to
• Rethink Innovation: Find ways to think outside the box, seek out diverse opinions, and pay attention to the next great trend.
• Rethink Your Approach: Use the Competing Values Framework to identify your natural innovation profile—do you compete, collaborate, create, or control?—and then deliberately draw from the other styles to augment your usual tactics.
• Rethink Your Methods: Put your reinvention plan in motion—set specific, realistic, and meaningful targets, cultivate relationships with relevant mentors and experts, and try alternate methods to achieve your goals.
• Rethink the Journey: Understand that innovation is a process and that progress comes in cycles rather than a quick straight line. Accept uncertainty, question assumptions, and acknowledge areas where you can improve.
Full of invigorating ideas, engaging anecdotes, practical wisdom, and inspiring success stories, Innovation You is your personal road map to reach your highest potential—and experience a bold new way of living.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For more than 20 years, Degraff (Leading Innovation) has taught innovation and creativity to students at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and has consulted on the same topics to global powerhouses like American Airlines, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Pfizer, and Toyota, earning the moniker "Dean of Innovation." He aims his message at the general reader who wishes to change something in his or her life. Sharing proven techniques for thinking imaginatively, Degraff divides the book into four sections designed to help the reader see how to inject creativity into his or her life, to learn helpful approaches to innovation, how to test and experiment, and how to understand the long-term cycles that drive innovation. Throughout, Degraff illustrates his points with useful illustrations ranging from the companies he's worked with to individuals he has taught, observed, or known in his personal life. At heart a self-help book, this work uses business thinking to help the reader take the emotion out of the problem, consider how to identify his or her style of innovation as well as the best ways to consider the desired change. A useful guide to thinking about career changes, entrepreneurial leaps, or general self-improvement, Degraff's newest work is a must-read for those contemplating change and wanting to make more creative decisions.