Creative People Must Be Stopped: 6 Ways We Kill Innovation (Without Even Trying)

Innovation is systematically stopped in organizations, often by the very people who say they want it and who stand to benefit from it, according to David Owens in this book. There are plenty of books containing research and advice on innovation and how to come up with good ideas, but this book aims to expose how and why good ideas are killed and innovations fail despite the wealth of research and advice.The author says that there are six main ways in which innovations are killed:* Individuals do not generate enough good ideas to create viable innovations* Groups allow negative emotions to derail the process of evaluating and implementing new ideas* Organizations find innovation threatening because they are designed to produce routine and consistent outputs* Industries are oriented to today's market needs, and their customers are resistant to altering the economic status quo* Society rejects or regulates new ideas that are inconsistent with prevailing norms* New technologies have to demonstrate their effectiveness and reliability before they are adoptedThe book goes on to describe in detail each of these six types of innovation constraints, ways of diagnosing which of the constraints is or are applicable to any given innovation situation, and suggestions for applying corrective action designed to overcome each of the constraints. A different diagnostic survey and a set of questions for reflection are provided for each of the six types of constraints, and an appendix gives guidance on how to use the assessment results.In my view the author's identification of different categories of innovation constraints is a useful one, because it demonstrates that, while different responses are required for different types of obstacles to innovation, there are limited numbers of types of obstacles and standard corrective actions can be developed for each. I found the book slow going in parts, but in my opinion it provides a helpful addition to the literature on innovation.

A well written, informative and insightful book. The author takes a novel concept and expands it in ways which I had never considered before. The concepts in the book will aid you both professionally and in your personal life.

David Owen's provides a straightforward explanation of the constraints facing innovations. These are broken up into individual, group, organizational, industry, social, and technological constraints. Vanderbilt's Professor Owens looks at each of these in depth and provides suggestions for minimizing the negative effect of each category of constraint. A great read if you're looking to innovate in your organization or want to be an entrepreneur. Furthermore, Coursera [...] currently hosts Professor Owens' course for free. A great bargain!

This is an outstanding book for anyone interested in innovation in their organization. The author provides a step by step method by which individuals can look at the constraints, advantages, and pitfalls involved in presentation of new ideas.It is connected to the Coursera online learning course from Villanova University where the author is a Professor. I most highly recommend the book and that the buyer sign up for the course. By the way, it is free.I can't say enough about both the book and the course.

Good book for class and business setting. Goal is to help support team creativity and innovation... break down those walls at your place of employment

This is a must read for anyone who has experienced situations where you have a great idea only to have various forces stifle progress on turning your idea into something real. What gives this book purpose is that it helps you understand how to work through these challenges (constraints) and push your idea forward. Using classic examples, readers should find inspiration in seeing how others have aligned their innovations and pushed for their survival in a world of resistance.

I actually took an Innovation class in my EMBA program at Vanderbilt/Owen Graduate School of Management from the author. Excellent framework for thinking about innovation in the workplace!

I bought this book while taking a the MOOC with Dr. Owens. Purchasing his book was not required for the course, but it helped with my understanding of the course content. The course was excellent as was the text. His use of case studies greatly enhances the principles of the material. I highly recommend the book and the course.

This volume is full of insight and helpful suggestions backed by lots of real life examples. Of course it's not about stopping innovation, but about understanding what gets in the way of creativity and what we can do to remedy the situation. This should be mandatory reading for anyone with a personal or business interest in fostering creativity and innovation. I commend this book to all.

The science is real, if not selective, and the writing style familiar. It was an easy two evening read on my Kindle and there were lessons and applications in each of the barriers described.

This is a good book, but not a great one. It has a great title that will draw people to it. It so often feels that creative people are stopped deliberately, and that whatever an organisation says you discover that the last thing it really wants is innovation. This book shows why this is, and why this impression is accurate. It will help frustrated innovators in many settings.The book is well written but without any great style or pace. The author is clearly an experienced expert on this topic and he gives many examples both of success and failure in innovation on each of the main themes of the book. The discussion is thorough, and there are useful summaries and action points at the end of each chapter.The main themes about what stops innovation are:-Individuals- may be set in their ways and thinking, may not be open to new ideas, may take great care not to expose themselves to new ideas.Groups and teams- may be set in their ways, and react negatively to any innovative idea. Emotion may trump intelligence. Egos may well be bigger than any sense of shared or company purpose, or focus on the customer's needs. As Earl Kersten of Demotivators puts it, "If we don't take care of the customer maybe they'll buzz off and bother someone else."The organisation- well set up to do what it does, with great efficiency- Why would it want to do anything different? May be too attached to what it does well now- and so easily outflanked by new entrants. Maybe companies should only exist for a finite time? Maybe their mission is only temporary, and perhaps they should be displaced by new products and services?The industry- may be focused on today's customer, and used to current "industry standards" The true innovators may have spotted a need the consumers doesn't even know they have yet.Society- may not be willing to accept certain innovations easily e.g. human cloning. Can people get the point of your innovative product? Can they see what it will do for them? Does it interest them or offend them? People/law/ethics- a complex mixture into which innovations have to launch.Technology- may not exist yet. If you can write science fiction good luck to you as a novelist, but you probably won't see the engineers turning your imaginings into products.This is a good book that will help those who want to innovate to realise what they are up against and shows some ways in which they could do it more successfully. It also would work in reverse for those who want easy ways to stifle an over-enthusiastic innovator. In the last chapter the author does show some sympathy with those who have ill thought out innovations forced upon them.There's a huge amount of useful content in this book, and it will help many of us as we try to innovate more successfully in the future.

Okay so the title of this book is a little misleading in that it tells us 'Creative people must be stopped', and then goes on to set out an agenda for capitalising on the creative talent within an organisation. The device of using a title that grabs attention isn't necessarily needed and to some extent I only happened to order the book because it was presented in a list of books that actually told me what I was getting into; I wouldn't have wanted to read a book that geunuinely prescribed the repression of such creative talents.Once the author hits his stride he tells us about a strategy for considering the ways in which we constrain talent and thus armed how to encourage the work of the creative within any setting to the benefit of all, and if not taken on-board, the detriment of the organisation and its employees.So I fully recommend that you jump in, buy the book, and scoot past the title and into the substance of this great text. Apply yourself in your business to a more creative and innovative approach and watch the growth occur.

This is a book on a subject about which I feel passionately. (the need to foster creativity in all walks of life, rather than stifling it)It is clear and full of excellent examples from business(Kodak) science (NASA) innovation (the Segway)- and could be the foundation for some inspirational approaches.It's not badly written- it is readable. So why didn't I engage with it? It's not the misleading title- (Oh,come on! Did anybody think this would really be a book about destroying creativity, rather than the opposite?) It's not the serious tone- this is, after all, a very serious subject. It's not the workbook-style approach- this could be useful (and I really like Covey's workbook approach)I guess it has to be the lack of spark or inspiration in the writing. The book just doesn't fly in your imagination- it's too earthbound to create a buzz. Lots of stuff to think about, and you may like it better than me, so it is worth investigating. Guardedly recommended.