Read the 5-minute summary for this episode and many others at owl.ceo. The OWL (Owner Wisdom Library) turns insights from more than 1,200 Exit Coach Radio interviews into short, practical lessons for business owners on growth, leadership, operations, and exit planning.
How can leaders become more deliberately creative and build a culture that produces breakthrough innovation?
In this episode of Exit Coach Radio, Bill Black talks with Dr. Roger Firestien, one of the world’s best-known teachers of the creative process, about how leaders can nurture creativity in themselves and in the people around them. Drawing from decades of experience and insights from his book Create in a Flash: A Leader’s Recipe for Breakthrough Innovation, Roger explains why creativity is not just a talent, but a process that can be led, developed, and applied in business.
This conversation explores what leaders need to do to create an environment where fresh thinking can flourish. Roger shares why deliberate creativity matters in today’s competitive marketplace, how innovation can be encouraged more intentionally, and why businesses need big, practical ideas to stay relevant and profitable during times of change.
For business owners, executives, and leadership teams, this episode offers valuable perspective on the connection between creativity, innovation, and business performance. It is especially relevant for leaders looking to improve problem-solving, encourage better thinking across their organizations, and unlock new opportunities through a more structured approach to innovation.
If your business is facing change, competition, or the need for better ideas, this discussion offers a useful framework for leading the creative process instead of waiting for inspiration to appear.
Topics include:
deliberate creativity
breakthrough innovation
leadership and creativity
innovation process
creative problem-solving
Listen for more conversations on leadership, growth, succession, and exit planning through Exit Coach Radio.
Join Bill Black for his weekly humor column at BlackPapers: blackpapers.substack.com
Exit Coach Bill Black interviews Top Advisors for Tips, Ideas & Precautions for Business Owners who want to grow and protect their company value and plan for a successful Business Sale or Transfer. Listen daily so you can be well-planned!
Curators1
People who have contributed edits to this page.
Oct 2026
Zolid AI
+0/−0
Published
February 26, 2024 Hey friend, I know how it feels, waking up exhausted after multiple trips to the bathroom and feeling embarrassed by sudden leaks. I used to be constantly on edge, searching for a restroom whenever I was out. Then I discovered better woman. I was skeptical at first, but two months in. Everything changed. I experienced improved bladder control. No more heart-stopping moments when I laugh or sneeze, less urge to go, deeper and more restful sleep. I finally felt like myself again, confident and in control. Better Woman is natural, effective, and trusted by women for over 25 years. Ready to take back your control? Head over to Bebetternow.com to order your supply today. That's Bebetternow.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Users directed individual results may vary. Hi everyone, it's Bill Black, the exit coach from the Exit Coach Radio show. You know, one of the biggest questions I get on the show is what exactly goes into a business exit plan and when should I start creating mine? Well, I always tell people that the best time to start was 5 years ago, but the next best time is now because you never know when you might need it. So we put together a free report that describes what an exit plan is and what you should know. You can get it free by texting exit plan with no spaces to 442-22. That's exit plan to 44222. Again, text exit plan to 44222. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure to have you with me so far today, but I'm not done yet. We have next up Dr. Roger Fierstein, who has taught more people to lead the creative process than anyone else in the world. His latest book, Create in a Flash, A Leader's recipe for Breakthrough innovation. Is his 6th book on innovation in a beautifully formatted book, he shares the key things that leaders need to do to nurture their creativity and the creativity of others to compete and be profitable in today's marketplace. And with all of the changes facing us, you need big creative solutions, and you need them now. Dr. Rogers, thank you so much for joining me today. Bill, it's a real pleasure to be here. Delighted to be with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I appreciate that, and I'm really happy to have you with us. I think like my intro says about you that today we need big ideas. We need creative solutions. We need changes, and we need processes to do to create those changes. Tell me, uh, tell me, uh, and our listeners, please, a little bit about you and your background. It's a very interesting background. Well, thank you, Bill. I've taught more people to lead the creative process than anybody else in the world. I've been involved in the field of innovation and creativity for 42 years now. I started out in Colorado as a musician and then moved to Buffalo, New York to attend classes at the International Center for Studies and Creativity. I've been a faculty member of theirs for since 1984 and I've consulted nationally and internationally with many different corporations and as you mentioned, creating a flash is sort of the culmination of 42 years in the business, and I really wanted to put forth in there what I've learned in working with thousands of students and hundreds of organizations, what works consistently to help people become deliberately more creative. So that they can turn on their creativity at will instead of waiting for those ideas to happen. And as you mentioned, we certainly need that right now, Bill. Do you think there's ever been a time when we need more creativity creativity? We have so many different issues and so many big changes facing us all these days. Well, Bill, I would say not in my lifetime because we have so many issues facing us on all different levels, and it's just really this is the time that we need some creativity. And some and and also I think oftentimes people confuse creativity with coming up with ideas. Much of the time is defining what the real problem is. And so oftentimes when I'm working with a client or when I'm working with the group, it's not best to just dive in and generate ideas. First, let's find out what all the issues are and and create then what we call creative questions. And then when we have the creative questions that really, really focus on what we want to solve, then generate some ideas to solve those. So we could come up with thousands of creative questions right now regarding what's going on in a variety of different ways. Look at those, look at the most poignant ones, and then generate some ideas for solving those. But and the other thing is sort of a creative mindset, and we can talk about that a little bit later if you'd like to as well. How would you define a creative question as opposed to a garden variety normal question? Yes, well, let's see. A garden variety normal question is, is the, is that your dog or what's your favorite color? A creative question asks you to come up with a variety of different ideas. So, so let's just say, let's say you you're looking to, so let's say. You, you want to say something like, Well, we don't have enough money or how to get some money. Well, let's rephrase that as how might we raise the money for this project or how might we reduce the cost. So a creative question begins with the words how to or how might or how might we and a creative question asks you to come up with options. Instead of saying something like, Well, we don't have any money, any money or management's never going to buy this idea, how to get the money, how to create, how to convince management of the value of this idea when you use those last two phrases, it opens your mind up to begin to search for solutions as as opposed to saying, well, we don't have any answers for it. So using words like how might or how might we or in what ways might we, that begins a creative question. Excellent. Now I've heard in brainstorming sessions and I've been part of peer groups and others that that have their processes, and generally what they'll say is in a brainstorming session you never move to the solution until you've exhausted the number of questions that you can get in brainstorming. Is that a good, is that a good rule of thumb? Well, that's a rule of thumb, but here's some things that might be a little bit more helpful for you. One of the things that we've found over the years is that when you're generating ideas for solving a problem is to set a quota because early on when we were doing research in this area and I was running a consulting firm, we really needed to find out where the breakthroughs were occurring when we put together an idea generating group. And here's what we found. We found that if you set a quota of let's say 30 to 40 ideas, the ideas generally tend to shake out in three areas. We call it the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 principle. The 1st 3rd of the ideas, about the 1st 10 to 12 ideas you come up with, Bill, those are going to be the usual ideas, the ideas that you've thought of before. The 2nd 3rd from idea 12 to 24 or so, those are the more unusual ideas. The group gets a little crazier, a little wilder there. The group loosens up a little bit more. Now those ideas are important because they help to form the more sophisticated ideas that occur later on in the process in the 33, and that's where the new ideas and the new insights really begin to happen. Also, if you set an idea at let's say 30 or 40 ideas, and it's really flowing, let yourself go with the ideas that you get after that. But the key learning for this is to not sit around and generate 10 or 12 ideas because if you're sitting around and generating 10 or 12 ideas and you think you're getting creative, you're not. All you're doing is getting those ideas out that are already rumbling around in people's heads. The creativity comes in the stretch, the innovation comes in the stretch. So we've found it helpful to set a quota and then, and then if you hit the quota, great, but usually within that quota you're going to find some really good ideas. So what a sprinter takes a couple laps around the track to loosen up before they get ready to really perform. So what you're saying is the mind needs a couple laps to warm up as well. Well, I'm really glad you brought up the term warm up because what often happens is you'll get a group together and you'll get them into a room and you'll say, OK, we need some ideas for solving this particular problem here, and they begin to then jump right into you expect them to begin to generate some ideas for solving that problem. That's one of the worst things that you can do and one of the biggest mistakes that people make by putting people together in a group and just starting cold. And that's why I recommend doing a little warm up exercise before you start working on the real problem. And warm up exercises are really kind of fun sorts of things. One of My favorite exercises is how to improve a bathtub. All right, that's a lot of fun. Another favorite is how to get a hippopotamus out of a bathtub or what might be all the ways to improve over a refrigerator or what might you do with 10 tons of orange jello or or how to get a raccoon out of a minivan, which actually did happen, right? And we said quote we set it up about 5 minutes, right. And what are all the ideas you can imagine for doing that? And what happens is the group gets the ideas out, they loosen up a little bit more, and they work on something that's admittedly silly, admittedly a little bit fun, and then by getting that energy, then you focus on the challenge that's at hand. Then you work on the real challenge, and you do this for 5 to 7 minutes. That's all you need. Now Bill, I have to tell you, my entire career when I neglected to do a warm up exercise, I actually neglected to do that twice either because I thought the group was already warmed up or because I thought I didn't have time for it, I had to go back and do a warm up exercise. And over the years, as I said, I've taught hundreds of graduate students in this. That's one of the things that I really, really emphasize is do a little warm up. first, then focus on the challenge at hand. So you're absolutely right. Just as a sprinter warms up by taking a few laps, warm up on working on something that's not, not related to the challenge at all, something very different, something very whimsical, something very fun, and then use that energy and the training that you got from that to work on the challenge at hand. It always works. I've heard in the past also that if you're stressed out when you take a deep breath or when you breathe deeply, it's a signal to your brain that everything's OK. well, the laughter would encourage that breathing, I would think, right? It's that type of loosening up. Yes, exactly. Well, yes, anything like that loosening up. And as far as the loosening up is concerned, as you know, humor is a great loosener upper. And so when you give folks something like, you know, how to get a hippopotamus out of a bathtub, you get some wonderfully ridiculous fun, whimsical ideas and people start laughing. And if you're laughing, you've got to take some deep breaths, all right. And so by doing that and just kind of having some fun with that, then you can really focus your energy on the on the tough challenge that follows. But don't start out a session with a tough challenge. Work on something that's fun, something that's whimsical, and then focus on the tough challenge. And I've done this with hundreds of groups, senior executives, senior government officials that you wouldn't think would have fun with this. It's extraordinary how much fun they have and how much more productive the idea generating session is. Is it harder to brainstorm like this over the internet, like Zoom meetings like we're all kind of forced to do these days? Yeah, well, you know, it's really interesting that you mention that, Bill, because I just finished completing one of our graduate courses here at the International Center for Studies and Creativity totally online, and I'm one of those people that says, hey, we have to do this in person. I need the energy in person, you know, I'm a person person, but Unfortunately that wasn't possible. And so we put together the class consisted of folks from Amsterdam to Australia. We used Zoom and we used the program Mural, and Mural essentially sets up flip charts and Post-its and those sorts of things so that you can do your idea generating session just as if you were in a session using a Post-it, and we've we've set up the templates ahead of time. And it was remarkable how well it worked, and the same principles that you use when you're teaching in a class, you apply that online as well, including things like warmups, but Um, it, I was, I was, I was delightfully surprised at how well it worked, and it's also the attitude as well. When you show up at a session, when you're leading the session, when you're teaching a group, it's how you show up as well in there as far as being nonjudgmental, open and encouraging to ideas. So even though my preference would be in person, you can do it on Zoom and you can do it on mural online. When someone's thinking personally without others, what's the most important thing that they need to do personally to be more creative? Well, that's a really great question. Probably the number one thing to be personally more creative is to not judge your ideas, because oftentimes we'll have an idea for something we'll say, Well, that's ridiculous, so that's not going to work. So just as you did, just as we discussed with the group, when you're working individually, just take out a sheet of paper, number from 1 to 20, and just start to generate some ideas. Now what's going to happen is you're going to get into about 6 to 7 to 8 ideas and you're going to start to run out of ideas. And that's why it's important to make connections, because making connections is the essence of creativity. And so for example, I'm sitting in my office right now. I'm talking to you. I see my backyard in my backyard I have a wonderful little mobile of a of a hot air balloon. So if I get stuck working on a challenge, I might look back there and say, Well, what I do is, do I get for a hot air balloon for solving this problem and make a connection or what ideas do I get from the grapevines in the back and make a connection. Now the connection making that you get from that might not be the breakthrough that you're looking for, but what it does do is it gets the creative process going again. So just as you don't judge in a group, just as you make connections in a group, just as you set a quota for ideas in a group, you can do that individually as well. That's great. Now, we've always heard the phrase, uh, sleep on it. Does that help? It sure does. Incubation we call it, and that's really one of the early models of the creative process which consisted of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. And so preparation is where you've really prepared, you've really dug around, you've really gotten all the information that you can, and you've been stymied about what the problem is. And then you step away from it, you sleep on it, you go to a different place, you take a break. And then usually all of a sudden the idea sort of presents itself, so there's the illumination, the aha, and then you go about verifying it and sleep is a natural way to do that. What I will often do is when I'm working on a piece of writing or something, and if I get stuck, I'll I'll finish. I'll stop mid-sentence going, I don't have anything here, and I'll get up and I'll go out to the yard or I'll get a cup of coffee or I'll walk around. And oftentimes while I'm doing that, the idea will come to me. Now there's a key here. The key thing is to write that idea down when it comes to you. Oftentimes what we tend to do is, is, you know, we say, oh, there's a great idea for solving that, and you forget it. It happens to lots of people as they're falling asleep at night. Oftentimes as people are falling asleep, ideas come to them for solving a particular challenge that they're working on because they're not in the judgment mode and the ideas are kind of bubbling up. The key is to write that idea down at that time. So that you capture it, so it's out of your head so you can get that sleep, and then the next morning go back and take a look at what you've got. That's happened to me countless times and I'm sure it's happened to you as well. The idea presents itself here it is. Let's come back and verify it a little bit later. So sleeping on it is a great way to get new ideas. One of the other things I've heard is that if you, you know, if you're in a room, like you're in your office right now and you're looking at your computer screen and you're stuck, then the idea of going outside where your eyes can open up your when your eyes open up, your brain can open up or that's why a lot of people might get ideas when they're driving or when they're out, you know, preoccupied with something else. Is that, is that part of the process as well? Absolutely it's funny because I asked people in my seminars, where do you get your best ideas, and it's driving. Exercising, falling asleep at night, or taking a bath or a shower. And if, you know, and as your listeners are listening to that, that's, they can probably peg one of those places where they get their best ideas. And the reason why that is is because we're paying attention to something in almost an automatic way, you know, you're driving, you're paying attention to that, and your mind is free to go other places. Some theories say that what's going on is that the judgmental part of the mind is busy driving. And that allows the other part of the mind to begin to kind of muse and come up with some ideas and those sorts of things. And when I travel and when I'm driving, I always, you know, have my smartphone with me. I used to have a pocket cassette tape recorder, you know, to record those ideas when they came to me because there's always good tidbits of ideas that occur then. So yes, those are great sources for new ideas, absolutely. What are some sources that listeners might be able to access that where they can really understand what the universe of new ideas is because sometimes we don't know what we don't know and when we're looking for ideas either within our industry or technology in general, where do you look for new and creative ideas? Well, that's a really good question, and maybe, maybe we can come as this with a story. Oftentimes when I'm brought in to work with a group and say we're working on a real technical problem and there's a particular tough issue that the group is working on, and so the client will say to me, now Roger, we need to make sure that we have all the technical people in here, all the people that know what's going on with this problem, so that they can begin to solve that problem. And I say to them, Well, you know, if the technical people haven't solved, haven't solved the problem, why have more technical people there, right? So what I recommend people that we do is we bring in people that are not related to the challenge, that have some new insights into the challenge, right, that might not know what can't be done. We put them into the group, have them contribute ideas, and all those ideas might not be that sophisticated, what tends to happen is that gets the new ideas flowing. The other thing is, is that when you're looking for new ideas, the key thing is to look outside of your field. So say for example I'm working in the creativity and business field. Well, let me go far away from that. What ideas might I get from this from the world of plants? All right, what ideas might I get from this from the world of of oil exploration or something? So the key is to, here's the problem that you're working on. Here's the area that I'm working on. No matter what field you're in, go to a different area. And there was a study that was done a number of years ago and it took a look at the reading habits of innovative scientists. And what they found, they had three groups. They had the innovative scientists, the ones that came up with all the great new ideas, the productive scientists, and then the slugs, right? Now the slugs didn't read hardly at all, right? The productive scientists read inside of their field almost exclusively. The innovative scientists, although they weren't always as technically proficient as their productive counterparts, these guys were reading everywhere, all right, from popular mechanics to to to to sci-fi to all sorts of fun stuff to biology, to movies, to novels. So the key is, is to is to read broadly and if you can't read, listen to podcasts, go to something that you might not naturally be attracted to. And use that to make some connections from. So that's the best advice I could give to people. Don't be a slug. Read different stuff. What a fascinating interview. Thank you so much. I'm going to tell our listeners how to find, create in a flash. Doctor, your new book is Create in a flash, a leader's recipe for breakthrough innovation. It's on Amazon or you can get it at createinaflashbook.com. Pretty easy. Create in a flashbook.com is where you can go and you know, you've heard some. Tremendous ideas from Dr. Roger. I really appreciate you sharing that I took about 3 pages of notes here, and I feel, I feel like we just scratched the surface. So I hope maybe we can talk again in the future and take it even further and learn more about what you're up to. So thank you so much for joining me today. You're very welcome, and I would be delighted to talk with you anytime in the future, Bill. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you so much all for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure to have you with me and we'll see you again next week on Exit Coach Radio. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. Hey friend, I know how this feels. Waking up exhausted after multiple trips to the bathroom and feeling embarrassed by sudden leaks. I used to be constantly on edge, searching for a restroom whenever I was out. Then I discovered better woman. I was skeptical at first, but two months in, everything changed. I experienced improved bladder control. No more heart-stopping moments when I laugh or sneeze. Less urged to go, deeper and more restful sleep. I finally felt like myself again, confident and in control. Better Woman is natural, effective, clinically tested, and trusted by women for over 25 years. Ready to take back your control? Head over to Bebetternow.com to order your supply today. That's Bebetternow.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Uses directed individual results may vary.
