THE CREATIVITY LEAP – Unleash curiosity, improvisation, and intuition at work
By Natalie Nixon
Natalie Nixon is president of Figure 8 Thinking, a consulting firm that emboldens organizations to apply creativity for transformative business results. She approaches creativity with the belief that all human beings are or should be creative. Taking the stance that creativity has been untaught in schools and workplaces, her book The Creativity Leap is designed to help people to connect to their creativity.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Leap-Curiosity-Improvisation-Intuition/dp/B07Y4JNH26
Nixon claims that “To be human is to be hardwired to be creative,” and that is the basis for her book The Creativity Leap, Unleash curiosity, improvisation, and intuition at work.
In her opening chapters, Nixon introduces us to creativity, defining the word and explaining what it is and why we need it. One of her arguments for creativity is, as she explains, the only way to successfully navigate complex situations.
In The Creativity Leap Unleash curiosity, improvisation, and intuition at work, Nixon shows us her perspectives with phrases such as “Innovation is invention converted into financial, social, and cultural value. Furthermore, the engine for innovation is creativity.” Along those thought lines, Nixon challenges the workplace to not separate creativity from other departments, but to make it all inclusive.
Nixon emphasizes the need for both wonder and rigor as an engine for creativity, explaining that both are needed in the workforce. “Wonder can be generated from the tedium of rigor.” Some of her examples are derived from her experience in dance and visual arts. That there needs to be energy behind imagination is a legitimate consensus.
In later chapters Nixon suggests that nothing is ever completely original. “There’s nothing new under the sun.” True, but she suggests that the basic archetypes Carl Jung introduced are a great foundation to form new ideas. I enjoyed her example of DOVE skin products.
MORE ON FIGURE 8 THINKING: https://www.figure8thinking.com/book/
I wonder, because of the style of writing, if some of what she says isn’t repetitive. It seems as though some of the chapters were just a new way of explaining what she had already written in prior chapters. I would have liked to have seen more studies and technical data supporting her ideas, not that I question them, but as a book used for instruction, which the title suggest it is, more reports would qualify her arguments better, as would more instruction on how to implement these things in the workforce.
The Creativity Leap Unleash curiosity, improvisation, and intuition at work is written well and presented in much the same way as a lecture. She supports her opinions and expertise with not just her own experiences as a dancer and having studied jazz and art but through research and observation. Nixon writes with interesting and creative text. She expresses herself well and offers demonstrations in varied ways through her research with NASA and other organizations that have implement different techniques for creativity enhancement.
Each chapter is supported with exercises at the end both for personal creative growth, and exercises for the workplace.
Dianne Gardner
