Customer Reviews

Breakthrough Creativity: Achieving Top Performance Using the Eight Creative Talents

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I am an experience MBA, and I was skeptical about another venture into exploring my own creativity.

It turns out Lynne Levesque's book Breakthrough Creativity was definitely a breakthrough in my perceptions. Creativity is not just for artists and advertising. I never really saw my engineering and project management work as "creative," but Levesque's book helped me recognize how confined one's perspective can be. I always sought creativity through sailing or sports. I didn't appreciate how it can play a role in everything I do.

This fresh outlook that we are all creative, with individually different creative talents, was a simple but important revelation. It was interesting to discover how much we limit our own creative endeavors. Levesque's metaphors analyzing creativity are imaginative and instructive, and her recommendations were very practical. Her recommendations are clearly grounded on her own business experience.

Levesque links creativity with resilience and a sense of possibility, a very powerful concept in today's troubled world.

I highly recommend reading this breakthrough book.

What is important to understand at the outset is that Levesque skillfully combines in this book some of the most important ideas developed by Carl Jung in correlation with concepts developed by Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers for what is now known as "The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®)" personality inventory. According to Levesque, "The more you learn about this instrument and Jung's theory behind it, the more you'll see its applicability to an understanding of creativity." There are so many excellent books on the (sometimes elusive) subject of creativity and this is one of the best. Levesque asserts (and I agree) that almost anyone can think much more creatively. That is to say, almost anyone can develop the skills by which to activate and then nourish certain talents which Levesque rigorously examines in this book, one which is intended "to bridge the gap between your knowledge of yourself as creative and those workplace demands and expectations to produce new and different results. [This book] will help you to travel from the land of confusion to a continent of clarification and the security of knowing how you are creative and what you must do if you are to produce even more creative results.

The basis of the book is the belief that [italics] everyone is creative. Everyone is not alike in his or her creativity because [italics] there is no one best way to be creative. You may not have developed your creativity to the same degree as others, but it's there. Everyone has the potential to be creative at work." Levesque defines creativity as [in italics] "the ability to consistently produce different and valuable results." She devotes a chapter to each of eight dominant personality types: Adventurer, Navigator, Explorer, Visionary, Pilot, Inventor, Harmonizer, and Poet. In Part 3, "Managing Yourself and Others to Enhance Creativity", she shifts her attention first to strategies to achieve effective collaboration and then to a "personal action plan" which her reader must develop inorder to achieve what Maslow characterizes as "self-actualization."

Please allow a brief digression. One of my favorite tactics (gimmicks?) when conducting a brainstorming/problem-solving session with executives was inspired by one of DeBono's books, Six Thinking Hats. I ask participants to wear a Dr. Seuss hat of one of various colors, each of which symbolizes a specific personality with appropriate values. (For example, those who wear a black hat must "remain in character" by being cynical, skeptical, negative, etc. and attack others' comments and suggestions. Every 10-15 minutes, participants exchange hats and must assume a new "personality" appropriate to the color of hat worn. You get the idea.

A similar session could be conducted with each participant designated as being one of the eight "creative talents" discussed by Levesque. Even those who insist they are not -- and can never be -- creative will soon realize the value of taking a hard look at a given subject from variety of different perspectives. They may not generate any dazzling new ideas but, as Levesque insists correctly, they CAN broaden and deepen their awareness of what is possible.

Many advocate thinking "outside the box." According to Levesque, creativity is not just "thinking" out of the box. It's feeling, doing, and being out of the box. She asserts not only that almost anyone can THINK much more creatively but also that anyone can BE much more creative, wherever that may be. One of the most important components of "breakthrough creativity" is the realization that creativity is not just a "thinking" phenomenon. It can also be manifested in being a nurturing team leader, connecting differently with associates, strengthening relationships with clients, etc. Levesque's identification and exploration of this component sets her apart from DeBono, Von Oech, and others whose work I also admire.

Briefly, I want to comment on the word "breakthrough" and state that I share Levesque's high regard for Adams's Conceptual Blockbusting. What Levesque correctly points out is that there are certain barriers (or "blocks") which anyone must break through (or "bust") inorder to think more creatively. Almost all human limits are self-imposed. The first barrier to break through, therefore, is the belief "I'm not creative." (Von Oech has this in mind when, in A Whack on the Side of the Head, he discusses ten "locks" such as "The Right Answer" and "That's Not Logical.") Barriers, blocks, or locks...whatever you wish to call them...all are self-limiting only to the extent they are permitted to be.

Obviously, I think very highly of this book. As noted earlier, Levesque brilliantly integrates several important ideas developed by Carl Jung with concepts developed by Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers for the "The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®)" personality inventory but she does not stop there. Recall her definition of creativity as [in italics] "the ability to consistently produce different and valuable results." Brooking, Davenport, Fitz-enz, Goleman, and countless others have expanded and enriched our understanding of "human capital." With this book, Levesque makes her own unique and substantial contribution to a collaborative exploration of unfulfilled humanity.

Breakthrough Creativity unleashes the power of the Myers-Briggs tool for the management professional. As a Project Management consultant and coach, my clients face two major challenges and this book addresses both: 1) Building an "instant" team from diverse specialties and departments, and 2) Communicating effectively with a variety of personality types.

Lynne Levesque's book is a practical, easy to use, reference tool. I give my clients a copy of the book to reinforce our discussions - so they can get their teams into the "performing" stage faster, optimize team interactions, and produce creative results.

In theory and in summary, author Lynne C. Levesque's book sounds wonderful. Today's changing business environment pressures everyone to come up with creative ideas, but not everyone is creative, or so goes common thinking. Levesque argues that everyone is creative, or can be, but that there are different types of creativity. Working from a base in Jungian psychology, and writing somewhat stiffly, Levesque explains eight major types of creativity. She has clearly studied creativity thoroughly. She provides historic examples, quotations and countless tools - including an analysis of creative personality strengths based on the Myers-Brig Type Indicator - to support her thesis that minds work in different ways. Unfortunately, she gives little evidence that people become more creative when they follow her suggestions, and that's the rub. Her specific suggestions sound great, but idealistic: how many organizations have the resources to assemble teams with complementary creativity styles? As a result, we recommend this book to two groups of readers who may have the knowledge to get the most from it: those who welcome the theoretical discussion as well as the practical suggestions, and those who are devoted to fostering creativity.

Lynne's model of the 8 Talents of creative expression is a wonderful resource for creative individuals and innovative companies. Using the MBTI type criteria, she clearly describes each type in terms of creative strengths and weaknesses with helpful resolutions for collaboration. This book is a real breakthrough in the field of creativity. I highly recommend it to everyone!

In Breakthrough Creativity, Lynne Levesque gives us a tool for using creative and innovative approaches to our life and business. This volume is not just a list of new exercises, it provides a framework for all people to discover how they are creative and how they can maximize their performance. Levesque uses C.G. Jung's theory of psychological patterns for gathering information and making decisions about it. Her explanation of the theory and how we can use it is clear and easy to understand. She presents a method for self selecting our creative talents (we all have them) and then creates eight interesting, attention grabbing profiles. The profiles give us something to identify with as individuals and team members. Breakthrough Creativity makes it clear that all people are not pegged or pigeon-holed in only one area of creative talent. With exercises designed to help us learn more about our own creative processes and the barriers and blocks associated with them, we have the freedom to seek to expand our talents and capabilities. Lynne Levesque carries us from identifying talents to building resilience as we use our creative processes in decision making, handling change and team relationships. I especially liked the way this book focuses on achieving more creative results. Breakthrough Creativity gives practical steps and ideas for applying creative practices to increase our success in life and work.

This book is a "must read" for any manager or aspiring manager today in every industry. Lynne Levesque has identified how the many God given gifts,she calls talents, are present in all people and how they can be effectively tapped for creavitive approaches to new products, problem solving or business directions. To be competitive today you have to be creative and this book shows how it can be done using your employees and there latent creative potential.

In Breakthrough Creativity, Levesque opens the reader's eyes to the individual talents that he or she possesses. Learning about your orientation to the world, how you process and analyze infomation, and how, exactly, you are creative is the first step in taking advantage of your innate talents.

Levesque reveals that you DO have creative talents, and she guides you through a series of steps to learn about what those talents are, and how you can implement a game plan to improve upon those talents.

This book is great for anyone who wants to learn how to improve upon themselves. It is also the perfect tool to learn about how to interact with friends, family and co-workers who have different creative talents.

By reading the book, I have become empowered to capitalize upon my strengths. More importantly, I am learning how to overcome barriers and explore how I must adjust my behavior to be fully creative. In addition, I have used it to learn about how well I know people who are close to me, and how to revise my attitude and have a higher level of respect toward people who have very different talents than me.

This book is eye-opening and refreshing. I give it the highest recommendation!

This book is awesome . It gives you solid information on the type of person that you are and allows you to identify clearly the type of characteristics that are present in the people you live with , work with and interact with in various facets of your life.

It is not an easy read - you have to get into the charts to a level that allows you to see the picture and to relate it to your life - read it twice - then it will hit you - it is worth the time