YOUR NEXT BIG IDEA

A step-by-step guide to mastering the basic skills of creativity.

As Sanders starts off his book by reminding his readers, everything starts with an idea. The author explains that there are four keys to unleashing the potential of such ideas: creativity, problem-solving, ideation, and innovation. Mastering these four skills, he says, will improve one’s life and career. In a series of short, clearly written chapters full of eye-catching visuals, Sanders breaks down the essentials of his concepts, and in each section, he includes blank spaces for exercises that range from very general and very simple (“take a problem you’re facing in life, your job, or business,” for instance. “Write down some stigmas you’re facing in that problem”) to actual conceptual problem-solving, involving mathematical calculations and even connect-the-dots challenges. He broadens his discussions to include, for example, the value of play and what he calls the “3x Rule,” where readers are urged to ask first, second, and third blocks of questions about the same problem. He likewise repeats the familiar truism that there are no crazy ideas—“Sometimes, the crazy ideas turn out to be the most feasible, so don’t ever rule them out.” The book’s primary flaw is that it’s clogged with far too many truisms like: “Identify problems, needs, and wants, and ask questions,” “check feasibility,” or “move from idea to reality.” Clichés crop up far too often in a book whose page count is already significantly padded with blank lines and problems to solve. Sanders’ ping-ponging approach may help some readers to break their old momentums and come up with new ideas, but they’ll need to do quite a bit of that work themselves.

A forceful but often obvious plan for spurring innovation.