Creativity and business have long enjoyed an uneasy alliance, with the latter more dependent on the former than it usually cares to admit. In The Five Faces of Genius, however, Annette Moser-Wellman builds a compelling case for creativity as the true force behind business and lays out ways in which it can be harnessed to even greater advantage. Moser-Wellman, president of a consulting firm that advocates just such an approach, breaks down the "thinking skills" of inventive masters like Mozart and Da Vinci into five types--Seer, Observer, Alchemist, Fool, and Sage--and then explains how readers can use the same processes in their own careers. "I discovered that the creative mind is the same no matter where you find it," she writes. "It took the same skills for Robert Frost to write a poem or for Bob Dylan to write a ballad as it did for Howard Schultz to create the idea for the Starbucks empire." Following an exercise that helps readers determine their own creative strengths and weaknesses, Moser-Wellman goes into detail on each of her five traits and offers concrete suggestions for integrating them into the corporate environment. As epitomized by Ray Kroc of McDonald's, for example, Seers can learn to "create a plethora of possible business solutions and to predict the uncharted territory of their industry and company." By combining real-world examples and implementation ideas with her own incisive perspective, Moser-Wellman provides advice that should appeal to anyone who believes there is more to a job than uninspired, rote behavior. --Howard Rothman
Moser-Wellman posits that the most valuable resource you can bring to your work and to your employer is your creativity; it's your ideas that matter. The five paths to ideas, she insists, are seer, observer, alchemist, fool, and sage. Seers see pictures in their mind's eye, and these pictures become the impetus for ingenious ideas. Observers notice the details of the world around them and collect them to construct a new idea. The alchemist brings together separate domains--different ideas, disciplines, or systems of thought--and connects them in a unique way to develop breakthrough ideas. The fool, she writes, has the power to celebrate weakness, practicing three related skills: excelling at inversion, seeking the sense in absurdity, and having unending perseverance. The sage uses the powers of simplification as the primary means to inspiration. Sages reduce problems to their essence and in^B the process create a very clever idea. Simplicity is their credo. Will all this work? The author is the president of a consulting firm. It must work for her. George Cohen
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Review
Five Faces of Genius can help you see your abilities and shortcomings more clearly. -- Working Woman, May 2001
About the Author
Annette Moser-Wellman is the president of Firemark, Inc., a consulting and marketing firm whose clients include Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and Hewlett Packard. She is a former director and vice president of Leo Burnett Advertising and is a contributing writer for Brandweek magazine. She lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
