This is the best guide I've read for innovation leaders and practitioners, yet it reads like a good spy novel. It offers a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of creative intelligence and is a practical compendium of relevant case studies, examples, stories, and advice. This remarkable book should be required reading for anyone interested in boosting organizational creativity, including every CIA leader and officer. Mike Mears, Retired CIA Chief HR The authors bring unusual and valuable clarity to many issues associated with the innovation process, including the role of R&D. They offer many practical tools and techniques that can be used to identify and advance high-impact innovation opportunities. Most importantly, they offer insights into ways that innovative environments can be established, including the role and behaviors of innovative leaders. Finally, they establish that innovation is a mission-critical activity rather than a distraction from the core mission. This book should be read by all who are interested in creating mission impact. John R. Phillips, Retired CIA Chief Scientist The CIA's national security mission puts it at the cutting edge of protecting America, and the three authors of Creating Mission Impact were among the most innovative Agency officers of the last several decades. They dedicated their careers with over eighty years of experience to enabling CIA to contend with a dramatically and rapidly changing threat landscape. Although the CIA has been among the most agile of government agencies, it still contended with bureaucracy, hierarchy, and well-established traditions of doing things in high-risk environments, which can make innovation and needed change quite difficult. This invaluable book's description of successful innovation initiatives and strategies at CIA teaches both government and private sector employees how to grab leadership's attention and increase the odds of implementation of new ways of doing business and increasing mission accomplishment. It should be required reading for everyone who wants to be a change agent with high positive impact in their organization. James C. Lawler, Retired CIA Operations Officer and recipient of the CIA'sTrailblazer and HUMINT Collector of the Year Awards.
