Breakthrough Creativity: Achieving Top Performance Using Eight Creative Talents [Hardcover]

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.

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.

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.