Your first idea is rarely your best. Exploring multiple possibilities, even "dummy" options, is the key to unlocking innovation. Here’s how to maximize your creativity and elevate your problem-solving skills: reject the trap of settling for your initial thoughts.

Some decisions are so important they’re worth waiting to make. As Tina Fey discovered in one of the most important decisions of her career, delaying a decision is a legitimate creative strategy.

Imagination is sparked by unexpected information. If you want to stimulate fresh thinking, seek out surprises. Here’s the inside scoop on the origins of an innovation at Mattel, which highlights the importance of welcoming an unexpected direction.

“Fish don’t know they’re wet.” IDEO founder David Kelly says it’s critical to question the things we take for granted. Entrepreneur Gabriela Gonzalez Bux recounts a remarkable example in today’s guest post.

Taylor Swift illuminates one of the most counterintuitive findings in all the creativity literature: the best way to have a good idea is to allow yourself to have lots of bad ideas. Seth Godin agrees.

We shouldn’t see sick days as days we can’t work. A few of my favorite breakthroughs prove, perhaps we should see them as a gift — an opportunity to receive a new vision of the future.

For breakthroughs to happen, we need to make new connections. These connections aren’t just the function of new input, though; we’ve got to create space to realize them, too.

How can a leader create an environment that’s hostile to bias, and one that cultivates the emergence of new ideas? Trier Bryant provides a simple framework to equip leaders with a plan of attack.

The best creators are constantly learning. There’s immense value in doing something you’re not good at, specifically for the sake of seeing an old thing from a fresh angle.

What do you do when your work is under public attack? Few have grappled with the question as deeply as Becky Margiotta, co-founder and champion of the 100,000 Homes campaign.

Leaders at Stanford and Pixar have proven that one of the most powerful ways to accelerate the quality of our ideas is to actively seek and embrace critique.

Bossy Cosmetics Founder and CEO Aishetu Dozie shares an insight with profound implications for finding purpose in work.

Cartoonist and storyteller Mo Willems provides the key to overcoming imposter syndrome. You’ve got to do the thing you aren’t qualified to do, in order to be qualified to do it.

Most organizations’ first question of a new idea is its technical specifications: can we even build it? The most important question is not technical, but human. A better question is, “Should we build it?…”

In this guest post, Erica Brown, an industry insider, shares tips for women working in technology.

We all like to deduce, to prove, to know for certain. But the most interesting opportunities for innovation are a function of wonder. Specifically, of a team willing to be humble and vulnerable enough to not know.

Imagination is sparked by surprising information. Customer insights leader Kelly Garrett Zeigler tells a story that highlights the importance of welcoming an unexpected direction.

It’s easy to dismiss tools like mood boards as “designer speak,” but the truth is, they’ve been indispensable to great thinkers seeking to capture inspiration throughout history.

I have been consistently disappointed at how few stories are widely-told about remarkable women in the history of innovation. Even so, I was shocked to see research on how broad a phenomenon the underrepresentation truly is.

How do you court the muse? Innovators from Jeff Bezos to Victor Hugo to Jerry Seinfeld teach us embrace every bit of inspiration as soon as it arrives - by writing it down.