Unlocking Creativity | Book Review 

“When surveyed, CEOs across a variety of industries
have identified creativity as one of the most
desired leadership qualities for the future." (p. xi)

Subtitled How to Solve any Problem and Make the Best Decisions by Shifting Creative Mindsets, by Bryant University’s Michael Roberto, takes aim at many common and chronic mindsets, frequently found in larger organizations.

Interestingly, Roberto found that while executives named innovation as a top priority, most employees felt that they were not encouraged to develop new ideas, and they did not have the time and resources required to do so (p. 10). This tendency seems strikingly familiar to the Knowing-Doing-Gap described in detail by Pfeffer and Sutton.

Roberto details six creativity-inhibiting mindsets (p. 17):

1. The Linear Mindset
2. The Benchmarking Mindset
3. The Prediction Mindset
4. The Structural Mindset
5. The Focus Mindset
6. The Naysayer Mindset 

Which may be considered detailed Action Plans that naturally follow Pfeffer and Suttons' Eight Guidelines for Action:

1. Why before How: Philosophy Is Important.
2. Knowing Comes from Doing and Teaching Others How.
3. Action Counts More Than Elegant Plans and Concepts.
4. There is No Doing Without Mistakes. What is the Company’s Response?
5. Fear Fosters Knowing-Doing Gaps, So Drive Out Fear.
6. Beware of False Analogies: Fight the Competition, Not Each Other.
7. Measure What Matters and What Can Help Turn Knowledge Into Action.
8. What Leaders Do, How They Spend Their Time and How They Allocate Resources, Matters.

This review highlights selected portions of Roberto's six mindsets and suggests that by overcoming them a team or organization both increases creativity and crosses the Knowing-Doing-Gap.

Resistance

Roberto mentions how frequently organizational cultures do not promote experimentation and risk-taking behavior (p. 9). We could say many corporate leaders don't "walk the talk." Management rules the day. Rewards and incentive systems focus on efficiency and productivity, and they discourage learning and exploration (p. 9).

Fear is the likely culprit. The bias of fear impedes our ability to be creative (p. 12). Pfeffer and Sutton concluded the same with fear fostering Knowing-Doing gaps, so we must drive out fear.

Mindsets

The Linear Mindset

Many organizations fail to understand and embrace the iterative and discontinuous nature of the creative process. They mistakenly try to move from analysis to idea formation to execution in a step-by-step manner (p. 17). Roberto diagrams a couple typical processes on page 25. Creativity and genius don't follow systemic patterns. For example, Leonardo (Da Vinci) embraced a learning by doing approach in all creative endeavors (p. 24). Consider the iterative test/failure/improve methodology employed by SpaceX today.

Most executives prefer to hire specialists with deep yet narrow expertise, rather than curious polymaths. They desire control, certainty, and order (p. 26). Yet, action counts more than elegant plans and concepts. Likewise, Pfeffer and Sutton found the best way to cross the Knowing-Doing-Gap is to learn by doing.

Many companies have failed to make the shift from the traditional planning mindset to a learning-by-doing approach (p. 35). By acting first, we may better learn afterward to measure what matters and what can help turn knowledge into action.

The Benchmarking Mindset

Firms study their competitors closely, but in doing so, they experience fixation. Consequently, they adopt copycat approaches rather than distinctive strategies (p. 17). Business economist Robert Kennedy discovered that distinctive, original shows consistently outperformed trend followers (p. 46). Pfeffer and Sutton found that benchmarking is usually superficial, never asking why successful organizations do what they do, or what underlying philosophy drives decisions.

Rather than simply benchmarking direct rivals, companies need to think broadly about the full range of substitutes against which they compete (p. 60). This broader definition is the competition to fight against.

The Prediction Mindset

Managers have a desperate desire to see what's next, and they exhibit overconfidence in the ability of experts to forecast the future. The insatiable need to predict just how big ideas will become actually impedes creativity (p. 17). 

Tetlock discovered that how people think matters
more than what they already know (p. 72).

When executives demand to know whether an innovation will move the needle, they presume that innovators can distinguish blockbuster hits from niche products at the early stages of the product development process (p. 79).

How an organization responds to mistakes will define, in large part, it's culture.

The Structural Mindset

Managers often resort to changes in organizational structure as a means of stimulating creativity and improving performance. They fail to recognize the limited efficacy of redrawing the lines and arrows on the organization chart time and again (p. 17).

Pfeffer and Sutton recommend observing what leaders do, and how they spend their time and how they allocate resources, matters. Roberto cites Zappos' -- who empower employees to do whatever it takes to please the customer (p. 87).

What [Google's] research showed us was that it's less about who is on the team and more about how people interact that really makes a difference (p. 97). This is what we find in our Creating a Motivational Environment workshops. The setting we create matters. In the creative process, psychological safety enables team members to propose unconventional solutions (p. 99).

The Focus Mindset                

Organizations believe that teams will excel at creative work if they focus intensively, perhaps even secluded from their colleagues. They fail to recognize that the best creative thinkers oscillate between states of focus and unfocus (p. 17). Roberto cites inventor Nikolas Tesla who explained "Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind" (p. 115). Once free of influence or processes, a natural rhythm may form. The best creative thinkers toggle between focus and unfocus throughout their lives, much like Twain, Tolkien and Wordsworth (p. 131). This process of action and relaxation counts much more than elegant plans & concepts.

The Naysayer Mindset

Managers encourage people to critique each other's ideas early and often. Unfortunately, the failure to manage dissent and contrarian perspectives causes many good ideas to wither on the vine. Evaluation is the dominant form of feedback. Unfortunately, in many organizations today, the critics and naysayers outnumber the idea generators and the doers by a wide margin (p. 142).

Consider a coaching approach driven by a desire for everyone to learn. Ask questions.

The best devil's advocates practice the Socratic method,
rather than delivering a lecture. (p. 151)

Summary

Be the curious leader as coach. 

As a leader, consider yourself a teacher at heart --
not the sage on the stage imparting wisdom from on high --
not that kind of teacher (p. 161). 

Michael Roberto generously provided a copy of the book for review.