Right now I’m reading one of the most exciting, engaging books I’ve read in a long time – A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech. He brilliantly makes creativity exciting and doable! I can hardly put this book down!

By nature I am not very creative. Normally, I want to get down to work with the facts. I don’t want to screw around with artsy-fartsy creative thinking… well, at least I didn’t until I read this book!

I’ve been thinking about why I haven’t given much time or energy to the creative process. A few of those reasons include:

• What I believe. On the surface, creativity appears to be a time-waster. For instance, putting a cereal box on the conference room table and asking, “What can we learn about organizational behavior from this object” seems a lot less productive than analyzing spreadsheets.
• How I’m perceived. I feel silly making my team brainstorm about organizational behavior as they stare at a cereal box. I’m afraid they’ll think I’ve lost my mind and I’ll lose leadership credibility. They may even call me “Mr. Cereal” and I can’t live with that.
• My work habits. I usually push things to the last minute and there’s no time left for creativity because it’s time to act!

von Oech is helping me to break through some mental locks that have shut down the creative juices. So for instance, right now I’m thinking:

• How can I assemble a crowd of 100 people for $1?
• What can be learned about organizational behavior from a cereal box?

To the creative ones among us… may your tribe increase.

To the uncreative ones among us… buy this book.

OK, I’m gonna go burn incense and stare at a cereal box…