Customer Reviews

Business Creativity: Breaking the Invisible Barriers

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"It is said that while 90% of children are creative, only 2% of adults are". What causes this drop in creativity as one grows up. Is creativity lost forever or just gets locked-up within. If it is still around, can it be retrieved? What are the invisible barriers in adults that hold the creativity in check? These are some of the interesting questions that this book attempts to answer.

Authors forcefully question the prevailing view of creativity as "some mysterious magical quality which only few of us have- the ones who have it don't need to be taught and trying to teach others is waste of time".

"Creativity is the ability to see what other people don't see or don't want to see". Authors have identified twelve invisible barriers that limits adult's ability to see. Why people don't see, because they rarely want to go beyond the minimum adequate and are comfortable with their single (widely shared) perspective.

Why one doesn't want to see differently, cause this would make him different from the majority. Looking, seeing, believing, thinking differently requires breaking barriers of social norms, traditions, established patterns of thinking, while maintaining childlike curiosity to self-explore. This calls for dismantling of invisible shield of looking good, and the pressure to confirm.

Being creative demands one to open-up, become less inhibited, be always ready to push boundaries and challenge the accepted while understanding the risks inherent in all of these demands. Nourishing creativity requires continuous practice. How well one is doing would get reflected in various daily aspects like ones capability to ask dumb questions, comfort in approaching and meeting strangers, experimenting with different physical appearances, ones ability to deal with topics like sex and violence with less embarrassment, and being able to appreciate different perspectives on most of the topics or life aspects.

Unless barriers to creativity are managed at individual level, the group activities aimed at developing innovative solutions may not be effective. For example, Brainstorming may not be fully effective unless participants drop the shield of looking intelligent, and voice freely non-confirming stupid looking but original ideas. Book suggests a workable model to make the Brainstorming exercise more effective.

Book makes three forceful statements defining them as basic principles of creativity ie (i) creativity does not depend upon talent, education or intelligence, (ii) there is always potential to further improve your creativity from present state, and (iii) creativity is all consuming - affecting all aspects of life- be it work or home.

Book is rich with quotations for multiple sources, interesting stories, research findings, puzzles, and self-administering exercises, that effectively conveys the message and reveal the truths we ignore. This makes book highly interesting to read and effective in driving the key points. At times, reader may sense repetition or experience deja-vu as he moves across different chapters, but that is because different barriers are interconnected and that certain emphasis is derived from repetition.

Several of the topics may not exactly be considered as directly relevant to business situations, but then the basic paradigm is that to be creative, it has to become way of life. Further there are not many "quick off-the shelf tools and techniques" that would make groups, start delivering creative solutions -on demand- in restricted fields, without disrupting the overall restrictive, and well regulated office set-up. Emphasis is on conquering barriers at individual level, and once these barriers are managed, any curious mind would be able to learn standard creativity techniques with ease or may even develop one.

Those of us, who want to generally experience life more richly, and desire to be child-like again in curiosity and creativity, this book is a valuable companion in your pursuit. "Think of mind as if it were a parachute. A parachute only works when its open, and that's also true for the mind'. This book provides enough thrust to open the mind.

It seems like you can find great deals on Amazon and this book will get the creative juices flowing but I don't understand why you charge $4 for regular shipping when it is always about half that price on the received package?