Using Innovation and Creativity as a Career Strategy

CareerCast - Life-long Career Development

Robert Tucker Whatever your position or industry, your ability to innovate—to problem solve, experiment, create ideas, drive growth, collaborate, and add value—gives you a personal competitive advantage. Where is the future of your career? Some people, including innovation expert, author, and former professor Robert Tucker, would argue that it lives on the edge of innovation in the four corners of the world. In this CareerCast, Robert shares his knowledge, wisdom, and experience of traveling the globe in search of innovation. He answers questions on how to apply innovation and creativity to your career advancement—now and far into the future.

Aired September 19, 2010

Robert B. Tucker is president of the Innovation Resource and an internationally recognized leader in the field of innovation. Formerly an adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, Tucker has been a consultant and keynote speaker since 1986.

His pioneering research in interviewing over 50 leading innovators was published in the book Winning the Innovation Game in 1986. Since then, he has continued to publish widely on the subject, including his international best seller, Managing the Future: 10 Driving Forces of Change for the New Century, which has been translated into 13 languages. His most recent book, Driving Growth through Innovation, describes the emerging best practices of 23 innovation vanguard companies, and was released in a revised edition in 2008.

As one of the thought leaders in the growing Innovation Movement, Tucker is a frequent contributor to publications such as the Journal of Business Strategy, Strategy & Leadership, and Harvard Management Update. He has appeared on PBS and CBS News, and was a featured guest on the CNBC series The Business of Innovation.

The Innovation Resource, based in Santa Barbara, California, is a consulting firm devoted exclusively to assisting companies seeking to improve top- and bottom-line performance via systematic innovation.

Tucker is a much sought-after keynote speaker at conventions, company management meetings, and industry conferences. Clients include over 200 of the Fortune 500 companies as well as clients in Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Australia.

Robert Tucker resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife, Carolyn McQuay, and daughter, Cara Rose Tucker.

Innovation Is Everybody’s Business: How to Make Yourself Indispensable in Today’s Hypercompetitive World by Robert B. Tucker (2010)

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin (2010)

Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky (2010)

Rework by Jason Fried (2010)

Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change by Jeremy Gutsche (2009)

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (2007)

Think Better: An Innovator’s Guide to Productive Thinking by Tim Hurson (2007)

Capitalizing on Career Chaos: Bringing Creativity and Purpose to Your Work and Life by Helen Harkness (2005)

Robert Tucker InnovationIs Everybodys Business

Read an excerpt from Innovation Is Everybody’s Business: How to Make Yourself Indispensable in Today’s Hypercompetitive World by Robert B. Tucker.

Read the Excerpt