Inviting you to hear it first. Announcing my new book, “Beyond The Obvious”

I’m thrilled to say I’ve just wrapped up the manuscript to my first book, Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation, published by Hyperion and due on the shelf February 7, 2012.

The crux of the book is about generating ideas that lead to breakthrough innovations.  Why is this so important? Constantly generating great ideas is the foundation for staying ahead in this rapidly changing and highly competitive world.

Ideas are funny things.  We fool ourselves into thinking we search for them, but in reality, we apply the same old “answers” that worked for us in the past, and then we stop looking.  What we fail to notice is that we've applied historical blinders based on our experiences and education, which prevent us from looking beyond the obvious.  The key to uncovering new insights and new ideas is to force ourselves to get past these rules and assumptions.

The book reveals a rule-breaking approach to business reinvention—and it couldn’t be more timely. Industry and business models are shifting, seemingly overnight, and only nimble, creative businesses that consistently generate the best ideas will survive. Based upon a series of key (killer) questions that I’ve collected throughout my career, Beyond the Obvious is about helping organizations “stay alive” by moving past the stale, accepted answers that stifle innovation.  Specifically, how to question the assumptions that hold individuals and organizations back, overcome the objections of the people who prevent change within an organization, and convince teams that “brainstorming” doesn’t have to be a dirty word.

For those of you who have been hounding me to publish the list of the killer questions, here you go.

To learn more about the book, jump over to BeyondTheObvious.com .