Montgomery Bruce - Brain Disruption: Radical Innovation in Business through Improv

Praise for ExperienceYes

"I was blown away by how ExperienceYes unlocked my teams creative power. We are a team of highly creative people. Still, to see the idea generation of our team at DaVita go up by 41% was just astounding, and I can see the value of using these skills and tactics in future innovation sessions."

Bill Myers, Vice President, Marketing, Communications & Corporate Social Responsibility, DaVita

"We had a phenomenal experience with ExperienceYes from beginning to end, starting with the in-depth research they did to learn about and understand my organization and colleagues. From researching our business, to several in-person sessions discussing everything from personality types, leadership styles, challenges, and group dynamics, it was as if they were part of my team before they even arrived. I am excited to work with ExperienceYes moving forward in my hospital teams in many capacities. I cannot provide a stronger recommendation that you make them a part of your organization.

Sarah Schillereff, DVM, Regional Vice President, VCA

ExperienceYes takes leadership development to the next level. The facilitators encourage both personal and team growth at the same time. It was an extraordinary and innovative way for our Children's Hospital Colorado executive leaders to learn, growand laugh!

Nita Mosby Henry, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, HR, Children's Hospital Colorado

We thought ExperienceYes was PHENOMENAL!!! Truly. You guys have definitely found your calling and what you offer people/organizations is so important and so great. Thank you for leading our team through your process! I hope to work with you again in the future.

Kate Sparks, Program Developer, Executive Education, Daniels School of Business, University of Denver

The Oil & Gas Industry is often a volatile and unpredictable industry. At Noble Energy, we strive to embrace creative thinking to make us flexible and agile. Bringing in ExperienceYes for our facility redesign project helped us to break down our existing thinking and get out of the box in which we were stuck. With their guidance, our team collaborated, innovated, and delivered solid results. We couldnt have gotten there without them.

Brian Peters, Director Major Projects, Noble Energy

Kind of scary but fun and freeing! Gail and Bruce infused a new energy into the day (and week). Im intrigued by how improv can translate into teamwork, better communication, and increased creativity in the workplace.

Rocky Mountain Leadership Participant

Praise for the Book

I loved Brain Disruption. Bruce and Gail Montgomery fuse fun, effective principles of improv theater with extensive real-world experience helping teams amp up their ability to innovate. Lucid and entertaining, this book provides practical, approachable exercises grounded in up-to-the-minute brain research. For anyone who wishes to understand and practice innovation in a more disciplined and effective way, this book is an instantly usable and worthwhile manual.

Arthur Blume, Engineering Manager, Google

In an entertaining and easy read, this book offers the basic tools to allow the readers to maximize their creative problem-solving skills in any organizational structure. The authors provide a unique perspective to teach a practical approach to formulating solutions to problems within any institution or organization in both the public and private sector.

Lawrence J. Siegel, Dean and Professor, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, and Associate Provost for Graduate Professional Education, Yeshiva University

If you own, lead or support an organization focused on creating innovative solutions, then THIS IS A MUST READ. I have read more business books than I can count and this fantastic guide to disruptive thinking is high on my recommended read list. My company, ISSAC Corp, is focused on innovation to solve incredibly complex problems---This process will greatly impact our future level of success.

Tim Jones, President & CEO, ISSAC Corp

Brain Disruption practices what it preaches by taking an innovative approach to increasing innovation. With their 30 years of experience in acting and in business, Bruce and Gail Montgomery demonstrate how unleashing the power of improvisational acting can help people generate more ideas, teams work together more effectively, and companies compete better. Every company and every person who wants to be more creative, more innovative, and more successful will benefit from the tools and techniques in this book.

Daniel Park, Chief Campus Counsel, UC San Diego

The Montgomery team put science and art together in a tidy package called Brain Disruption. It is fascinating to see how understanding the neuroscience behind the creative process will help all of us get better at the innovation process. This book will be useful to our Executive MBA students as they combine the disciplines of finance, accounting, marketing, and leadership to build the organizations of the future. This is a great book for anyone looking to find the hard solutions to organizational aggravations.

Kerry Plemmons, Professor of Practice, Daniels School of Business, University of Denver

I cant wait to start using Brain Disruption with my team. I see this approach as our next way of staying competitive in the marketplace and driving significant change in our business.

Josh Pinkert, CIO, Encana

Innovation any new idea by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience."

WARREN BENNIS
American scholar and author of On Becoming a Leader

Contents

Introduction

Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.
Bill Gates

Innovation. Its a four syllable word that just rolls off the tongue of todays business leaders, right?