MHJ
Literature reviews, by category
Edward de Bono: Serious Creativity
Rating: ***

Edward de Bono has become known among a selected few, influential business thinkers as the primary creativity consultant. He has released a number of books on the subject, the best-known one being probably “The Six Thinking Hats”.
Serious Creativity is for a great part just an overview to de Bono’s other works. Although many of the ideas and techniques are described in detail, the author leaves the reader cold by constantly referring to his other books for more information, examples and applications.
What comes to the ideas, they are quite unconventional. Provocation and methods of pushing free association further seem at first strange and without application, but after trying and testing do yield some results. With deeper understanding of the techniques the processes and results could be even more tangible.
That said, I view Serious Creativity as a manager’s guide to innovation and creativity tools and techniques. Perhaps this approach could have been emphasized more to make the book more motivating to read.
The downsides are mostly to do with motivation. The author’s tone seems quite cold, self-assured and almost defiant, especially in regard to the references to further reading (of his own material). One other thing that also struck me was the attitude towards team-creativity and team work. De Bono quite bluntly states that brainstorming doesn’t work, and even with the compelling reasons he presents I was left wondering whether something could be done about this…