CREATIVE TOGETHER

Kowalski discusses awakening individual creativity and co-creating with others in this business strategy guide.

“If you want innovation, you must activate creativity,” asserts the author (an organizational development consultant), who presents three “adventures” to help readers overcome Creative Disruption Disorder (CDD), the wrongheaded mindset that “a few of us are gifted and the rest of us are not” which “tricks you into thinking you’re out on that stage all alone.” The first adventure is about “inner work,” with Kowalski using the framework of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey” to describe “dancing in the center of the intersection” of purpose, possibility, and constraint to navigate life’s tests and creative quests. The second adventure involves bringing creativity into co-creation with groups, with the author detailing four core creative styles: Soloist, Rebel, Entrepreneur, and Collaborator. All four styles can be valuable in the mix, yet the Collaborator is particularly crucial, Kowalski notes, since command-and-control behavior, most particularly at the leadership level, is a creativity (and thus innovation) killer. The book’s third adventure coaches readers to continue to build “a lifelong practice of proactive creative accountability.” The author provides examples from one of his own group projects and those of clients to illustrate issues regarding co-creation and offers end-of-chapter questions and summaries encapsulating his advice on changing one’s thinking and behavior. Kowalski offers an empowering view on how to get out of the muck of stuck projects and flip the script on feeling victimized and/or disengaged in the workplace. His challenging advice includes assessing those whom readers have determined to be the “villains” at work and examining how and when they have been villains themselves. While readers may wish for more case studies demonstrating effective co-creation, Kowalski makes a compelling argument that creativity is an underused and important muscle that must be better flexed, both individually and collaboratively, in organizations to spark and drive innovation.

An intriguing, transformational toolkit for individual empowerment and teamwork.