Finally, here is a book that gives a system and approach to help those maverick innovators who frequently initiate spurts in innovation and business. The book makes easy and instructive reading. It is much more than a monologue and gives the reader a sequence of adaptable exercises that lead the potential innovator to explore both opportunities and ideas in greater depth. While business schools have become increasingly data driven and limited by tangibility, this piece of writing asks us to listen to our subconscious or our gut feelings, and provides some simple tools and methods to improve the process. More importantly, it drives us to work with our ideas and run with our passions, rather than giving up because of a lack of direction in our creative process. This book could be an inspiration to marketers, innovators, and all managerial personnel.
Academic pundits of creativity will recognize here some of the old wine in new bottles. Embedded in the book we find some ideas that are not so new. Parts remind us of concepts of the idea incubation period, or creativity through the alternative paths of extroversion and interaction as contrasted with creativity through introversion or deep concentrated thinking. However, this book's claim to significance lies in having successfully steered away from academic semantics, appealing more to practitioners and innovators, while using, de facto, many of the observations that academics recognize. This is probably an outcome of the author's experience as the head of training at What If!, one of the world's largest innovation companies. This does not mean that this book is not for academics – rather, here is a book that can help them to make the transition from theory to practice.
The author organizes his book into six sections. He starts with a section on “Freedom.” His concept is multifaceted, dwelling on freedom from the constraints of conventional learning as well as the individual creating a freedom from self‐constraining shackles, to “do what I want – any old time” (p. 34). Personal freedom derives from choices and opportunities, which we either create or are presented to us and “either route involves creativity, thinking differently, and seeing the world in new ways” (p. 35).
The second section, titled “The Process,” addresses insights and ideas, particularly the role of the subconscious mind. To create the synergy between our conscious and unconscious minds, Barez‐Brown has a simple suggestion, that, “the more we relax the more access we get to our massive subconscious” (p. 65). The chapter is buttressed by its practicality and tips to tune in to our own “state” of being and the unconscious. Barez‐Brown opines that this state is how we are at any given moment, as it manifests a reflection of our intuition. He lists a racing heart, hairs standing on end, hands getting clammy, or a feeling of absolute clarity as examples of this state.
Mojo‐Making is the Chris Barez‐Brown buzzword for transforming ideas, firing up with energy, and resonating with others. Liberally sprinkled with both day‐to‐day and business examples, the third section discusses important Mojo‐Makers, that is, the factors that lead to extraordinary results. He advocates joy in the process itself and exhorts us to realize that play is more creative than being serious. Freedom in self‐expression, energizing curiosity, and seeking breakthroughs rather than incremental changes all transform our creativity from the common to the extraordinary. Drawing a distinction between the passivity of thoughts in comparison to the active power of ideas that actually change the world, the author's focus is a self awakening that “you can DO an idea” (p. 105).
The fourth section on “Insight” focuses on identifying opportunities and that “you need to explore a whole load more to understand the nature of that opportunity” (p. 122). The book creates a bag of tricks to at least give a start to the process of both identification and exploration. Some of the examples used are from the rich experience of the company What If!. The fact that many of this company's clients were major corporations does not detract from the relevance of the examples to individuals, trainers, and entrepreneurs.
The “Ideas” section draws attention to the brain's tendency to reference analogous situations, or tried and tested solutions, to solve problems. This process, while efficient in one sense, becomes a limitation to the idea generation process, and “the more often you do something, the harder it is to do it differently” (p. 163). “Impact” is the section where we arrive at the chosen final idea as well as transform the idea into reality. Quite logically, this is the final chapter. Its contents are a collection of examples that deviate from the conventional. There is no prescriptive answer or unique solution here, as once again, the book frees the innovator from the bounds of convention.
This book is a pump primer for creative innovative processes, and a reminder that existing paradigms have to be frequently shelved, to innovate. The utility of the book lies in its simplicity, and the excellent examples and illustrations bring home its message. Many illustrations are from personal contexts, while others are a sprinkling from companies such as Pizza Hut, Lego and Nike. Further, the section on “Insight” has nine exercises, and the section “Ideas” has a set of sixteen exercise, which are excellent starting points for stepping into the Chris Brown‐Barez catalyst to creativity.
The book is elegantly pieced together in paperback, with sidebars, color schemes and headings to improve its readability. All these make the book a quick and easy read, and then we tend to read it again and again, to savor its essence better, and for the details and exercises. Marketers, innovators, teachers, management savants and many more, could all take away something from this breath of fresh air. Here is a worthwhile buy for the airplane ride or the bookshelf, at $12.95.
