Book Review: Bruce Nussbaum,Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create,Connect,and Inspire

Creativity is undoubtedly among the most desired and debated topics in organizations today. While for many years the pioneering studies emphasize its uniqueness, exclusivity and individual orientation, the book authored by innovation expert Bruce Nussbaum Creative Intelligence with subtitle Harnessing the Power to Connect, Create, and Inspire has opened new vistas in proposing a renewed perspective and furthers the social context of creativity. The book departs from the conventional wisdom that relies on individualism and exclusivity and argues for nurturing creativity and innovation as routine and common phenomenon across organizations.

The book has three parts, and it is logically coherent for readers to relate with the chapters. The first part of the book titled Reclaiming Our Creativity has two chapters and embodies several creative pursuits and their secrets by historical and anecdotal references drawn from diversified sources. The author has quoted R. Keith Sawyer through the early chapters with a glimpse of the journey of creativity research which distinguishes between the psychological, sociological and managerial perspectives on creativity.

Part two of the book illustrates five distinctive competencies of creative intelligence. The author has devoted five chapters to explain these competencies.

In chapter three, the author indicates the first competency of creative intelligence, that is, ‘knowledge mining’, and presents the unorthodoxy involved in assimilating knowledge from multiple disciplines and discovering unique ideas and practices. He claims it is analogous to the famous quote from Steve Jobs ‘connecting the dots’. The embeddedness of knowledge is what is necessary for creative intelligence. He classifies two tools for knowledge mining ‘embodiment’ and ‘immersion’ and justifies the utility of the tools through reflective insights and examples. The author gives a distinction between knowledge for experts and knowledge that allows us to be creative. The former requires a long time when the latter does not necessarily require too long a time but long enough to build a knowledge base that can be mined for creative purpose.

The discussion on embodiment and immersion resulted in what the author indicates is ‘connecting the dots’ through knowledge mining. In support of his argument, he illustrates ‘Roomba’, world’s first vacuum cleaning robot and Procter & Gamble (P&G) initiative of ‘Connect + Develop’ by moving beyond the walls of the organization for new ideas. The key is being open to insights from unfamiliar and unexpected corners. The author pointed out the varying abilities of individuals to connect the dots; they learn it through the life phases. He described a character of creative people to see the invisibles and coined a term ‘donut knowledge’. He discusses the case of Paul Polak, the social entrepreneur and his experiments across Asia and Africa, bringing solutions in what is unexplored. The author also stresses on a few strategies such as pattern recognition and observing the breaks and bird the birders for being able to master in donut knowledge.

The author draws a contrast again to the conventional wisdom in ushering for chasing dreams than needs. His points were supported by two examples from India, the first is the women wrestling academy in Haryana started by Usha Sharma and the second is ‘Dream:IN’ an initiative taken by entrepreneur Sonia Manchanda, the founder of Idiom, the largest integrated design firm. The author strongly argues in cultivating a broad understanding of the world which reinforces meaningful creations. Towards the end of the chapter, he points out how knowledge mining can be a foundation for creativity and discusses the steps followed by organizations to capitalize knowledge from its employees and harness the knowledge mining process. The few strategies discussed is to have a system of auditing skills and areas of interest for the employees, mapping the informal ‘creativity networks’ inside organizations. At the end, the author cautions that knowledge mining being susceptible to disengage people.

Chapter four discusses another competency ‘framing’. The author claims that individuals with a knack of creativity set their frames to look at the world. He illustrates Pablo Picasso and the manner in which he reframed painting. The author argues framing, and reframing can offer alternate ways of behaving. The author classifies framing into three types: the narrative, engagement and what-if. Further, he justifies framing under conditions of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA).

Chapter five deals with competency ‘playing’. The author begins with a brief case of Tetra Pak and the dilemma of its design team. He uses the metaphor of early forms of playing and its migration to economics and business. The author also cautioned the perceptual limitations of play to be superficial and fancy than deep and involves learning. The author makes an anecdotal reference of Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga and his analysis of the role of play in cultures around the world. The author discusses a few strategies in gaming such as what’s the game? The players make the game and build your own games. At the end of the chapter, the author prescribes how individuals and organizations can integrate games and use play as an instrument for creativity and change.

Chapter six throws light on the competency ‘making’ by highlighting the achievements of Elon Musk and his versatility with enterprises such as PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla motors. He insists making involves learning the tools that help in bringing creativity to life. The renewal of interest among Americans in make-it-local cuts across political, class and regional lines. In supporting his arguments on local goes global, he points on General Electric and its focus shift towards making in USA. He further says the society has reached an inflection point where globalization is peaking and people in a wider scale are beginning to embrace an economy centred on home-grown values. In quoting the example of ‘Etsy’, the author puts forth the importance of local manufacturers linking to a digital platform to make global impacts.

Chapter seven is dedicated to the competency ‘pivoting’. Nussbaum initiates the discussion, quoting product designer Bob Brunner and his mastery of pivoting skill in creating new products to venturing new companies. The author argues on the transformation of creativity to business creation as one of the strongest economic forces of today’s time. The author stresses on pivoting to describe the movement from inspiration to production. It is the scaling of creativity that’s essential to create new products and new models of business. The author made a series of explanations reflecting on examples from several fields on how ideas can turn into game-changing business or non-profits.

The last part of the book discusses the economic value of creativity; the author brings a concept ‘Indie Capitalism’. He critically discusses the ripple effects of the financial capitalism along with its opportunity and crises. He mentioned HP’s journey through a series of leadership changes followed by acquisitions, consolidation, outsourcing to secure operational efficiency but loses out on creativity and innovation. The author predicts ‘Indie Capitalism’ to be a movement which reflects an economy that is independent of the prevailing orthodoxies of economic theory and big business. Its single foundation principle ‘creativity drives capitalism’ led by several young and small start-ups, echoing creativity, innovation and entrepreneurialism can play a vital role in architecting a new economy.

The book consists a large collection of anecdotal references drawn from across the globe to support the five competencies proposed by the author. The author has tried to offer his explanations and arguments to make each competency unique in its scope and character. Yet it lacks to point out the relationship between each competencies and the manner each affect the other. The author is optimistic on the competencies, thus discounted the possible limitations associated with the competencies.

The book is a handy tool for students, entrepreneurs, executives in large and small enterprises, and academicians who have a knack to be creative and harness innovation in their personal and professional life.