Article published in Issue Number: 070101Book Review:
Thinkertoys
Cultivate your creative genius
Cultivate your creative genius s ISOs and merchant level salespeople, you are sales entrepreneurs. But you're also idea entrepreneurs. Those who can come up with fresh ideas and see new opportunities in changing circumstances usually succeed. Those who can't usually fail.
Thinkertoys
A handbook of creative thinking techniques
Michael Michalco
Copyright 2006
Ten Speed Press
Berkeley, Calif.
Paperback, 394 pages
ISBN: 1-58008-773-6
The Green Sheet Inc. is not responsible for the availability, ordering process or payment options on any books
But when was the last time you had a truly inspired idea? Has palpable creative energy crackled through your staff meetings lately? How often do you hear about someone else's brilliant idea and wish you'd thought of it yourself?
Wouldn't it be nice to have a guidebook to which you could refer when you need a spurt of inspiration?
If your answer to the last question is yes, you're in luck. Michael Michalko has produced the second edition of Thinkertoys: A handbook of creative-thinking techniques. The best selling first edition, published in 1991, was widely acclaimed by reviewers and the business community alike.
The new edition amplifies the old with new chapters, updated examples and a compendium of mindbenders, puzzles, diagrams and techniques that all aim to crack creativity wide open.
While an officer in the United States Army, Michalko headed a team of NATO intelligence specialists and international academics.
Their task was to research, collect and categorize all known inventive-thinking methods and then apply them to a host of social, political and military problems.
In his post-military career, Michalko has helped diverse government and business organizations apply creative-thinking techniques to bring forth new ideas, solutions and directions.
Michalko believes creativity can be taught, much like any other skill. In addition to using his book, Michalko encourages those who want to be more creative to read other books on creativity, learn to apply creative thinking techniques, and attend classes and seminars, when possible.
Thinkertoys is replete with theory, facts, insights and exercises designed to help people think in unexpected ways; look at their lives in terms of what can be instead of what is not; question their assumptions; and overcome fears, uncertainties and doubts.
You'll require only a pencil and paper to try out most of the techniques.
If you're snowed in at an airport and looking for a quick read, this book isn't it. At 394 pages and measuring 9.13 inches by 7.38 inches, it won't fit in a pocket, and it might weigh down your briefcase.
It's a mini-encyclopedia, meant to be used again and again in a multitude of ways. The book's companion card deck, Thinkpak, which was designed to facilitate brainstorming sessions, does travel well. It just might spark some interesting waiting-room conversations.
According to Thinkertoys, a useful blueprint for preparing your business for the future contains the following six steps:
- Identify a particular problem in your business.
- State a particular decision that has to be made.
- Identify the forces (economic, technological, product lines, competition, and so on) that have an impact on the decision.
- Build four or five future scenarios based on the principal forces.
- Develop the scenarios into stories or narratives by varying the forces that impact the decision.
- Search for opportunities within each scenario.
If such an extensive resource seems a bit overwhelming, don't worry. Michalko said readers shouldn't try to memorize specific techniques; they should remember the basic principles around which his work in creativity is structured.
If you can do that, you'll be well on the way to inventing creative-thinking techniques of your own to help lead your team in new directions for further success.
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