Stephen’s Innovation Books
Tools for Your Innovation Journey
Eight Innovation Books Since 2001
Over the past twenty-five years, Stephen Shapiro has written eight books on innovation, beginning with 24/7 Innovation in 2001. His work spans from Goal-Free Living (2005) and The Little Book of BIG Innovation Ideas (2007) to the popular Personality Poker (2010, updated 2025) and Best Practices Are Stupid (2011, updated 2023). More recent titles include Invisible Solutions (2020), PIVOTAL (2024), and You’re Not Playing with a Full Deck (2026).
Below, you’ll find only the books that are currently available through retail channels.
You're Not Playing with a Full Deck: Why the Coworkers Who Drive You Crazy Are Your Unfair Advantage
COMING APRIL 21, 2026
175 page paperback, e-book, audiobook, and limited edition hardcover
The people who drive you nuts are actually your competitive advantage. The ace up your sleeve. By spotting which perspectives your team is missing and rethinking “culture fit,” you can drive innovation and collaboration that lead to breakthrough results.
No endless personality tests or corporate fluff, just a fast read that changes how you see the people you work with, especially the ones you would rather avoid.
Pivotal: Creating Stability in an Uncertain World
216 page hardcover, e-book, and audiobook
In a world where pivoting has become the norm, Pivotal offers a refreshing alternative: focus on what remains constant to forge deeper customer connections and generate enduring value. Available in hardcover, ebook, or audiobook.
Invisible Solutions: 25 Lenses that Reframe and Help Solve Difficult Business Problems
176 page hardcover, e-book, and audiobook
Best Practices Are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition
220 page paperback and e-book
Well-intentioned leaders, in their attempts to boost innovation, are inadvertently destroying it. In Best Practices are Stupid, Stephen offers forty counterintuitive yet proven strategies for boosting innovation and making it a repeatable, sustainable, and profitable process. Shapiro shows that non-stop innovation is attainable and vital to building high-performing teams, improving financial outcomes, and staying competitive with peer organizations. Updated in 2023.
Personality Poker: The Fun Fast Way to Unlock Innovation Collaboration, and Predictble Growth
262 page paperback, e-book, and audiobook
2025 Updated Version Available Now
The key to creating high-performing innovation teams is to make sure that all team members play to their strong suit. In the Personality Poker book and card game, Stephen helps organization leaders and their teams understand how they contribute to–and avoid destroying–the innovation process.
The Kindle version is only $0.99 for launch week. The full retail price is $6.99.
Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW!
240 page hardcover and e-book
Most people are taught that in order to achieve great success they must set and achieve goals. However, in doing so, they become focused on where they are going rather than enjoying where they are right now. In Goal-Free Living, Stephen presents an alternative philosophy–live goal free.
