Unlocking Creativity: How to Solve, Any Problem and Make the Best Decisions by Shifting Creative Mindsets, reviewed

By @SimonCocking review of Unlocking Creativity: How to Solve Any Problem and Make the Best Decisions by Shifting Creative Mindsets, by Michael A. Roberto. Available from Amazon here.

Tear down the obstacles to creative innovation in your organization Unlocking Creativity is an exploration of the creative process and how organizations can clear the way for innovation. In many organizations, creative individuals face stubborn resistance to new ideas. Managers and executives oftentimes reject innovation and unconventional approaches due to misplaced allegiance to the status quo. Questioning established practices or challenging prevailing sentiments is frequently met with stiff resistance. In this climate of stifled creativity and inflexible adherence to conventional wisdom, potentially game-changing ideas are dismissed outright. Senior leaders claim to value creativity, yet often lack the knowledge to provide a creative framework. Unlocking Creativity offers effective methods and real-world examples of how the most successful organizations create cultures of innovation and experimentation. Best-selling author and scholar Michael Roberto presents a thorough investigation of organizational obstacles to creative thought. Highly relevant to the growth crises many enterprises face in today’s economic landscape, this book examines how to break barriers to spark creativity and foster new ideas. This bookallows business executives, senior managers, and organization leaders to: Recognize the six organizational mindsets that impede creativity and innovation.

Who doesn’t love a book about creativity? Thankfully this book is also an interesting and enjoyable delve into this area. Creativity is actually an area where a lot of thought and research is taking place, partly inspired by some recent classics on this topic including Ed Catmull’s insights from Pixar ‘Creativity Inc‘. This book takes you through the various challenges and obstacles to achieving creative solutions, including also looking at Jon Kraukauer’s ‘Into Thin Air’ (another great book, well worth reading) at the failure of innovation and the ability to articulate concerns due to hierarchical structures. The space shuttle disaster also being cited as a tragic example where concerns were identified but the dissenting voices were not deemed to have sufficient credibility in the organisation to be heard, with disastrous consequences. Many organisations have aimed to learn from these failures, incorporating methodologies to allow dissenting voices, devil’s advocates and other ways to have valuable insights not merely be disregarded due to lack of seniority.

Roberto collates these examples into an interesting narrative and his footnotes at the end of each chapter are also often well worth reading too.  We enjoyed the wide ranging collection of examples and case studies. If you are serious about encouraging your teams to be creative, and to continue questioning overall company direction then this is a book that is well worth reading. Innovate or perish at the hands of your competitors.

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