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fbroom's review against another edition
3.0
Some ideas here and there, personally I was bored at times
a lot of exercises .. many are group exercises
Notes:
Chapter 1: Introduction
The author’s goal is to make us aware of the creative process, blocks that inhibit it and tricks that we can use to overcome these blocks. Our reaction often to a problem is to get rid of it and quickly throw solutions at it, the author calls it “hit and run”. We do this instead of spending some time to actually understand the problem and solve it correctly
Outline to the rest of the book
Chapter 2-5: Conceptual Blocks (mental walls that block the problem solver)
Chapter 6-7: Techniques are will allow you to overcome these blocks
Chapter 8: Conceptualization: (the process by which one has ideas)
Chapter 9: Blocks to creativity at the organizational level
Final Section, resources/books on creativity
Chapter 2: Perceptual Blocks
- Stereotyping: example: the author believes he can accomplish more wearing a tie
- Difficulty in isolating the problem: people getting rid of the symptoms instead of solving the real problem
-Tendency to Delimit the Problem Area Poorly: example: the classic draw four lines without lifting the pencil. You will never find a solution if you constrain your problem area
- Inability to see the Problem from Various Viewpoints: Vertical vs Lateral thinking
- Saturation: Missing out on details because you’re saturated with the data
- Failure to Utilize all Sensory Inputs
Chapter 3: Emotional Blocks
- Fear of Taking a Risk: One solution is to simply write down the consequences of taking that risk
- No Appetite for Chaos: The inability to tolerate ambiguity
- Judging Rather than Generating Ideas
- Inability or Unwillingness to Incubate: Allow the mind to struggle with the problem, forget about it and then come back to it. Incubation is important
- Lack of Challenge Versus Excessive Zeal
- Reality and Fantasy: You should not only be able to vividly form complete images but to also manipulate them
- Of Flow and Angst: At certain times, you can in be in “Flow” totally consumed with your tasks and at times. How to increase those periods of flow?
Chapter 4: Cultural and Environmental Blocks
Cultural blocks: Taboos, “playfulness is for children only”, problem solving is serious business, reason and logic are good, intuition is not. Tradition is preferable to change.
Environmental blocks: distractions, lack of trust, lack of support.
Many psychologists believe that children are more creative than adults only because adults are more aware of the practical constraints
Chapter 5: Intellectual and Expressive Blocks
- Solving the problem using a different language: sticking to one language instead of trying all three (math/verbal/visual) (folding a paper 50 times game if you use visual imagery instead of math you won’t solve it)
- inadequate using of intellectual problem solving strategies
- lack or incorrect information
- inadequate language skill to express and record ideas
Chapter 6: Alternate Thinking Language
- This chapter stresses on alternating between a verbal, a mathematical and a visual approach to solving problems
- One of the things you can do to enhance your seeing ability is to see things and then draw them
- Visual imagery is both how sharp and filled the details are in your image and the second is control (how well you can manipulate them)
Chapter 7: Kinds of Block Busting
- Maintain a questioning attitude (overcome the block that asking questions will make you look stupid, it’s not)
- Work on the right problem (write the problems and the draw connections between them, sometimes it takes an effort to find the real problem)
- Don’t rely on memory Making, make a list of things
- Many creativity techniques have to do with how we can divert ourselves from accepting the first answer and considering other alternatives. One way is to list all the attributes of the object and under each attribute list all the possible alternatives (Improve a ball-point pen: list all attributes: Cylindrical Plastic .. and so on. Now list under each property the possible alternatives (Square, Beaded …) and (Metal, Glass, Paper ..).
- Often people tend to want to solve a big problem (solving the air pollution problem) instead make a bug list of specific things that are getting in your way everyday, this list will then spark ideas.
- Another type of list making is making a check list of things to try when solving a problem, for mathematics for example this could be (multiply, divide, eliminate, unify … and so on)
- Interacting with other people to get their ideas
- Crossing disciplines, cultures and changing environments
Chapter 8: Groups
Chapter 9: Organizations
Book Recommendations from the author
Books about creativity
Creativity and Beyond by Robert Paul Weiner
The Act of Creation, by Arthur Koestler
The Creative Process, edited by Brewster Ghiselin
The Mathematician's Mind, by Jacques Hadamard
The Double Helix, by James Watson
The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James
The Starship and the Canoe, by Kenneth Brower
The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder
Origins of Genius, by Dean Keith Simonton
Books about thinking
Mindfulness, by Ellen J. Langer
Intelligence, Creativity by J. P. Guilford
Frames of Mind, by Howard Gardner
Breakthrough Creativity, by Lynne Levesque
Books about memory
Don't Forget, by Danielle C. Lapp
Memory, by Larry R. Squire and Eric R. Kandel
Books about psychology
Creativity in Context, by Teresa M. Amabile
Creativity, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
On Creativity and the Unconscious, by Sigmund Freud
Books about the brain
The Brain, by Richard E Thompson
Maps Of The Mind, by C. Hampden Turner
A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman
Creativity in business
The Knowing-Doing Doing Gap, by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton
Stream Analysis, by Jerry Porras
jamming, by John Kao
The Wisdom of Teams, by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith
a lot of exercises .. many are group exercises
Notes:
Chapter 1: Introduction
The author’s goal is to make us aware of the creative process, blocks that inhibit it and tricks that we can use to overcome these blocks. Our reaction often to a problem is to get rid of it and quickly throw solutions at it, the author calls it “hit and run”. We do this instead of spending some time to actually understand the problem and solve it correctly
Outline to the rest of the book
Chapter 2-5: Conceptual Blocks (mental walls that block the problem solver)
Chapter 6-7: Techniques are will allow you to overcome these blocks
Chapter 8: Conceptualization: (the process by which one has ideas)
Chapter 9: Blocks to creativity at the organizational level
Final Section, resources/books on creativity
Chapter 2: Perceptual Blocks
- Stereotyping: example: the author believes he can accomplish more wearing a tie
- Difficulty in isolating the problem: people getting rid of the symptoms instead of solving the real problem
-Tendency to Delimit the Problem Area Poorly: example: the classic draw four lines without lifting the pencil. You will never find a solution if you constrain your problem area
- Inability to see the Problem from Various Viewpoints: Vertical vs Lateral thinking
- Saturation: Missing out on details because you’re saturated with the data
- Failure to Utilize all Sensory Inputs
Chapter 3: Emotional Blocks
- Fear of Taking a Risk: One solution is to simply write down the consequences of taking that risk
- No Appetite for Chaos: The inability to tolerate ambiguity
- Judging Rather than Generating Ideas
- Inability or Unwillingness to Incubate: Allow the mind to struggle with the problem, forget about it and then come back to it. Incubation is important
- Lack of Challenge Versus Excessive Zeal
- Reality and Fantasy: You should not only be able to vividly form complete images but to also manipulate them
- Of Flow and Angst: At certain times, you can in be in “Flow” totally consumed with your tasks and at times. How to increase those periods of flow?
Chapter 4: Cultural and Environmental Blocks
Cultural blocks: Taboos, “playfulness is for children only”, problem solving is serious business, reason and logic are good, intuition is not. Tradition is preferable to change.
Environmental blocks: distractions, lack of trust, lack of support.
Many psychologists believe that children are more creative than adults only because adults are more aware of the practical constraints
Chapter 5: Intellectual and Expressive Blocks
- Solving the problem using a different language: sticking to one language instead of trying all three (math/verbal/visual) (folding a paper 50 times game if you use visual imagery instead of math you won’t solve it)
- inadequate using of intellectual problem solving strategies
- lack or incorrect information
- inadequate language skill to express and record ideas
Chapter 6: Alternate Thinking Language
- This chapter stresses on alternating between a verbal, a mathematical and a visual approach to solving problems
- One of the things you can do to enhance your seeing ability is to see things and then draw them
- Visual imagery is both how sharp and filled the details are in your image and the second is control (how well you can manipulate them)
Chapter 7: Kinds of Block Busting
- Maintain a questioning attitude (overcome the block that asking questions will make you look stupid, it’s not)
- Work on the right problem (write the problems and the draw connections between them, sometimes it takes an effort to find the real problem)
- Don’t rely on memory Making, make a list of things
- Many creativity techniques have to do with how we can divert ourselves from accepting the first answer and considering other alternatives. One way is to list all the attributes of the object and under each attribute list all the possible alternatives (Improve a ball-point pen: list all attributes: Cylindrical Plastic .. and so on. Now list under each property the possible alternatives (Square, Beaded …) and (Metal, Glass, Paper ..).
- Often people tend to want to solve a big problem (solving the air pollution problem) instead make a bug list of specific things that are getting in your way everyday, this list will then spark ideas.
- Another type of list making is making a check list of things to try when solving a problem, for mathematics for example this could be (multiply, divide, eliminate, unify … and so on)
- Interacting with other people to get their ideas
- Crossing disciplines, cultures and changing environments
Chapter 8: Groups
Chapter 9: Organizations
Book Recommendations from the author
Books about creativity
Creativity and Beyond by Robert Paul Weiner
The Act of Creation, by Arthur Koestler
The Creative Process, edited by Brewster Ghiselin
The Mathematician's Mind, by Jacques Hadamard
The Double Helix, by James Watson
The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James
The Starship and the Canoe, by Kenneth Brower
The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder
Origins of Genius, by Dean Keith Simonton
Books about thinking
Mindfulness, by Ellen J. Langer
Intelligence, Creativity by J. P. Guilford
Frames of Mind, by Howard Gardner
Breakthrough Creativity, by Lynne Levesque
Books about memory
Don't Forget, by Danielle C. Lapp
Memory, by Larry R. Squire and Eric R. Kandel
Books about psychology
Creativity in Context, by Teresa M. Amabile
Creativity, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
On Creativity and the Unconscious, by Sigmund Freud
Books about the brain
The Brain, by Richard E Thompson
Maps Of The Mind, by C. Hampden Turner
A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman
Creativity in business
The Knowing-Doing Doing Gap, by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton
Stream Analysis, by Jerry Porras
jamming, by John Kao
The Wisdom of Teams, by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith
erikars's review against another edition
5.0
I read this book as part of my personal development goals at work. Much of the value of this book is working through the exercises throughout, so if you are really interested in the material, you should read it for yourself. My full summary, including a description of all the blocks Adams describes and how to avoid them can be found here.
Adams motivation in writing this book is to introduce people to ways to improve their idea generating ability. Adams makes the claim that having good ideas does not require genius (although that does not hurt). Most people fail to have good ideas because of conceptual blocks. A conceptual block is anything that blocks someone from having a good idea.
The first half of the book describes different types of conceptual blocks and contains a number of exercises to help the reader understand the blocks and how to avoid them. Some of the exercises are best done with more than one person; I was not able to do those.
The second half of the book discuses strategies for overcoming conceptual blocks on the individual, group, and organizational level. Although the first half the book also talks about how to avoid blocks, the second half of the book goes into more detail about specific strategies for avoiding blocks.
Not all blocks apply to all people. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Some blocks will seem nonsensical and learning about others may feel like a revelation.
It is also important to note that Adams does not claim that creativity is the be all and end all. However, he chose to focus on creativity in his book because he feels that, in the context of the group he is writing for (Americans with at least a fairly decent education), creativity is an underdeveloped skill compared to rationality and diligent hard work. All of these factors are important for success. First you need to have a creative idea, then you need to check whether or not it is reasonable, and then you need to implement it.
Adams has written a book that manages to cram a lot of information on creativity into 200 pages. He is clear about which of his statements are scientifically justified, which are justified by his experience and the experience of others, and which are just his own ideas. Overall, the book provides an accessible and concise overview of different blocks to creativity and how to overcome them. (Plus, the exercises are fun!)
Adams motivation in writing this book is to introduce people to ways to improve their idea generating ability. Adams makes the claim that having good ideas does not require genius (although that does not hurt). Most people fail to have good ideas because of conceptual blocks. A conceptual block is anything that blocks someone from having a good idea.
The first half of the book describes different types of conceptual blocks and contains a number of exercises to help the reader understand the blocks and how to avoid them. Some of the exercises are best done with more than one person; I was not able to do those.
The second half of the book discuses strategies for overcoming conceptual blocks on the individual, group, and organizational level. Although the first half the book also talks about how to avoid blocks, the second half of the book goes into more detail about specific strategies for avoiding blocks.
Not all blocks apply to all people. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Some blocks will seem nonsensical and learning about others may feel like a revelation.
It is also important to note that Adams does not claim that creativity is the be all and end all. However, he chose to focus on creativity in his book because he feels that, in the context of the group he is writing for (Americans with at least a fairly decent education), creativity is an underdeveloped skill compared to rationality and diligent hard work. All of these factors are important for success. First you need to have a creative idea, then you need to check whether or not it is reasonable, and then you need to implement it.
Adams has written a book that manages to cram a lot of information on creativity into 200 pages. He is clear about which of his statements are scientifically justified, which are justified by his experience and the experience of others, and which are just his own ideas. Overall, the book provides an accessible and concise overview of different blocks to creativity and how to overcome them. (Plus, the exercises are fun!)
positron23's review against another edition
4.0
The material is good and the author's voice is easygoing. However, the book itself was a dense read for me that took a year and a half to finish. There's so much to go through and think about that it is hard to read a lot at once. Even now that I'm done, I wish there were podcasts or YouTube videos of the professor's lectures that I could listen to in addition to reading because I still don't think I have had enough exposure to the material to make it stick.
gautamgopalk's review
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
4.0
Conceptual Blockbusting by James L. Adams is an enjoyable book which makes the reader think about thinking. It is a short book and quite fun to read. There are some good works of art, doodles and cartoons that accompany various chapters (which more books should have). The subject matter of the book is about creativity and making the reader cognizant about the thought process.
The ardent reader with interests about this can meditate on their own ways of thinking and strive to improve them through what is contained in this book. The narrative is laced with suggested group exercises, many of which seem fun and could serve as party games (apart from highlighting various aspects of creativity and thinking).
The ardent reader with interests about this can meditate on their own ways of thinking and strive to improve them through what is contained in this book. The narrative is laced with suggested group exercises, many of which seem fun and could serve as party games (apart from highlighting various aspects of creativity and thinking).
trillium9's review against another edition
4.0
I read this one for a class. It definitely has some interesting brain teasers and questions the way you formulate and solve problems. My main criticism would be that it's hard to see how it really fits into other literature I've read about the engineering problem solving process, management, etc. But perhaps that's the point.
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