Collaborative Creativity is a powerful methodology for groups that uses short bursts of creative challenges to help people go beyond rational/conscious thinking and uncover, with constructive consequences, the emotional/irrational sphere that influences behaviour. It was developed by Peter Comber specifically for the complex environment of the healthcare industry, and this how-to manual for managers of healthcare companies offers practical advice on how to employ creative processes in their sector.

There are substantial obstacles to creativity in healthcare. Peter Comber navigates them brilliantly. Essential reading for healthcare communication professionals, creative or otherwise.

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What I love about this book is how it makes creativity accessible. It’s easy to say “everyone is creative”, but what is not so easy is to design processes and environments and the resulting workshops that allow people who are not designated “creatives” to bring their creativity to solving problems. That’s what this book will equip you to do, and while the practical examples given relate to healthcare, the ideas in this book are applicable to any for-profit or not-for-profit organization.

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I’m not even finished with this book, and it’s already clear to me that it is a 5-Star piece of writing and an incredibly practical resource.

Having done considerable work with Peter Comber over the past 15 years, I can attest that he is the real deal — and so is his book. I’ve seen, firsthand, how Pete gets the best thinking from groups of people, and this book shares his brilliant tips on how to capture that kind of lightning in a bottle.

For anyone wanting to foster greater creativity and collaboration in their workplace, get this book. You’ll be glad you did.

Amazon.com

Peter Comber’s book delivers on its title in meaningful and relevant ways. He introduces the “forces” to give readers the foundation of a creativity model. He demonstrates why “collaborative” is a more powerful approach to innovation than simply solo efforts. And he offers “practical” exercises, templates, and workshop agendas to help creative leaders put the principles into action. I have had the pleasure to watch Peter participate and lead groups with tools like these — and he is an impact player. So, I’m excited that he has documented and published his methods and experiences. When you get this book, you will read it, dog-ear it, highlight it, and apply it to your next creative group endeavor.

Amazon.com

Fantastic Book an absolute must for teams in the pharma business.

Amazon.de

Every pharma industry professional should read this book. It simply and clearly explains important business concepts. – Roberto Lorè, Vice President Commercial for Central Europe, BioMarin
A very interesting book – a must-have for all professionals operating in life science and marketing with a clear and structured approach to solve real business problems. It is based on Collaborative Creativity: a flexible framework to increase ability to generate and execute meaningful ideas, through the empowerment of people – because the ability to understand and engage others is an awesome superpower. – Nicoletta Luppi, Senior Vice President and Managing Director MSD Italia
The Forces of Collaborative Creativity is succinct without being spare. It is in-depth without being murky. It is practical without being uninspired. Truly a book to buy two of: one to keep fresh on the shelf to invite the conversation of others, and one to dogear the crap out of and rip out pages to tape to the walls. – Bruce Rooke, Director Pufferfish, first-ever recipient of the CLIO Healthcare Lifetime Achievement Award
Collaborative Creativity provided us with insights that were unimaginable with traditional market research, to the point where, thanks to the depth of understanding of the experience of PKU patients, the company criteria and language of segmentation changed. Subsequently, we were able to share the results with specialist HCPs who welcomed the information on the opinions and needs of their patients and I am sure that they too regard their patients differently now. – Maria Teresa Lerco, General Manager, Orchard Therapeutics Italia.
I was privileged to work with Peter Comber as a colleague when he was the Creative Director for Europe at GSW Worldwide. Many of the concepts Peter describes in his book were incubated in that period and made more robust through practised implementation. Now they are proven processes that I have also adopted to manage my medical device business. – Philippe Deschamps, President and CEO Helius Medical Technologies and former CEO, GSW Worldwide
The Forces of Collaborative Creativity certainly provides us with an innovative and multidimensional approach to many aspects of our professional needs. This new comprehensive approach perfectly meets the current needs of healthcare professionals, who are increasingly asked to take care of patients in a multidisciplinary manner and as part of a multiprofessional team. To achieve this goal, the five forces reported in the book are of utmost importance. Moreover, as times and needs are changing, we have to learn to adopt new tools for monitoring and checking patients remotely; to do this creatively is mandatory. I found this book a very useful guide to change our way of thinking and working. – Professor Marcello Giovannini, MD, Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, University of Milan
The brilliance of The Forces of Collaborative Creativity is that it understands the essential catalysts of creativity and the true nature of organizations. Without collaboration, even the most creatively minded organizations wither on the vine. The Forces of Collaborative Creativity energizes and focuses organizations to surprise themselves and the world around them with elegant, powerful and engaging ideas. – Guy Mastrion, President and Chief Creative Officer of Brandforming and the F. William Harder Chair Professor of Business Administration at Skidmore College
Collaborative Creativity goes beyond design thinking and market research, on a journey that will bring the reader to discover themselves as creative directors – able to manage their internal and external workshops with professional exercises tailor-made to fit specific requirements. – Marco Mohoric’, Digital Medicines Customer Engagement Manager, Angelini Pharma
This book offers a lot more than its title suggests. Peter’s unique methodology, developed over 30 years in healthcare communications, offers insights for every sector of business and society: how to design a framework for collaborative creativity to deliver effective outcomes through social and professional cohesion. Marketing, communications, project management and product innovation professionals have much to learn from his idiosyncratic but easy-to-follow approach. – Julian Boulding, President, the networkone
A practical guide that challenges the orderly way pharma marketing is used to doing things – either when it embarks on launching a new product or when it reinvents a promotional campaign, repeating and improving what has been already done seems almost inevitable. The Forces of Collaborative Creativity vividly shows how we can all leverage our most valuable human assets to seek change in a self-propelling and sustainable fashion. – Rodrigo Fernandez-Baca, General Manager, Seattle Genetics, Italy
‘Creativity’ is an over-used word, but in The Forces of Collaborative Creativity, Peter Comber shows you the power it can have in fresh ways. His thoughtful, practical and exciting approach supercharges traditional creative processes by enabling and building on creative contributions from all the ‘owners’ of the problem to be solved – be they citizens, patients, marketers, agency teams, doctors or scientists. Reading this book made me really want to be part of one of the workshops run by Peter and his team! – Matthew Willcox, Founding Partner of The Business of Choice and prizewinning business book author

About the author ……………………………………………………………… xiii Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………….xv A brief introduction to Collaborative Creativity …………….. 1 Part 1: The foundations of Collaborative Creativity ..7 The five forces of Collaborative Creativity …………………….. 9 Self-discovery …………………………………………………………………. 12 Empathy ………………………………………………………………………… 16 Invention……………………………………………………………………….. 21 Realization …………………………………………………………………….. 27 Cohesion ……………………………………………………………………….. 31 Five-in-one ……………………………………………………………………. 36 Making sense …………………………………………………………… 41 Exceptional pharma ………………………………………………….. 47 Creativity and ideas ………………………………………………….. 51 Part 2: How to use Collaborative Creativity ………….59 Do-it-yourself ………………………………………………………….. 61 Terminology not jargon ……………………………………………. 65 The eight principles of Collaborative Creativity ……………. 69 Clearly stated objective ……………………………………………………. 70 Rational and emotional responses …………………………………….. 72 Exercises are unique to each project …………………………………. 74 Multiple, diverse exercises ……………………………………………….. 76 Safe and stimulating environment …………………………………….. 78 Individual, team and group tasks ……………………………………… 81 Repetitive organizing structure …………………………………………. 82 Group discussion ending …………………………………………………. 83 The Collaborative Creativity project ……………………………. 85 Problem paper ……………………………………………………………….. 86 Project briefing ………………………………………………………………. 86 Mapping ………………………………………………………………………… 87 Project statement and project design …………………………………. 88 Project output ………………………………………………………………… 92 The Collaborative Creativity session ……………………………. 93 Coach ……………………………………………………………………………. 94 Moderator ……………………………………………………………………… 94 Participants …………………………………………………………………….. 94 Other actors …………………………………………………………………… 95 Collaborative Creativity session agenda ……………………………… 95 Designing a Collaborative Creativity session ………………………. 96 Refining the session ……………………………………………………….100 Before and after the session ……………………………………………102 Collaborative Creativity exercises ……………………………… 105 Curating the flow of the exercises in a session …………………106 Inventing a creative exercise …………………………………………..110 Designing the worksheet and stimuli ……………………………….116 Collaborative Creativity exercise formats …………………… 119 Time travel ……………………………………………………………………119 Lifebelt …………………………………………………………………………121 Transforma ……………………………………………………………………123 Collage …………………………………………………………………………124 Identikit ……………………………………………………………………….127 Parallel universe …………………………………………………………….129 Pre-session exercises ………………………………………………………130 Moderating ……………………………………………………………. 133 Preparation ……………………………………………………………………133 Session moderation ………………………………………………………..134 Deposition …………………………………………………………………….141 Change and opportunity …………………………………………. 143 Quality office time ………………………………………………………..144 Mass distraction …………………………………………………………….144 The soul in the machine ………………………………………………..145 Signal-to-noise ratio ………………………………………………………146 Plastic brains …………………………………………………………………146 Trains and helicopters ……………………………………………………147 Further resources …………………………………………………………. 149 Further reading on how we think and act ……………………………………..149 Further reading on creativity ……………………………………………………..150

FORMAT / ISBN / PUBLICATION DATE / RRP

Paperback / 9781788601511 / October 27, 2020 / £24.99

Ebook / 9781788601504 / October 27, 2020 / £9.99

Paperback and eBook Bundle / £27.49

Peter John Comber

Peter Comber is the inventor of the Collaborative Creativity methodology and founding partner of Atstrat, a company providing Collaborative Creativity services to the healthcare industry.

An expert in applied creativity, with 35 years of professional experience that also includes a deep understanding of qualitative research, strategic planning and international marketing and management, Peter has unique practical knowledge of the power of group creativity.