Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity And the New Science of Ideas Review

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Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity And the New Science of Ideas Review
Although we recognize and appreciate the importance of the human mind's capability for breakthrough creativity (e.g. DNA, printing with movable type, the personal computer), Richard Ogle acknowledges, "the mental processes that led to them have remained largely beyond our grasp. Where do truly innovative ideas come from, and how does the mind make the leap to embrace them? What role do existing cultural and social factors play? Above all, what are the primary mental faculties involved in creativity, and how do they work?" These are among the questions to which Ogle responds in this volume. His objective is to provide "a theoretical and practical account of achievements that before were generally regarded as the unfathomable products of genius." He succeeds brilliantly by forging "a deep connection between the discoveries concerning discontinuity made in the emerging science of networks, the imaginative processes underlying creative leaps, and the law-governed dynamics of a networked model of idea--spaces in the extended mind."
Ogle has identified nine laws of network science, any one or combination thereof that can explain creative breakthroughs. For example, "The Law of Tipping Points": Under certain critical conditions, order arises out of disorder. Malcolm Gladwell devotes an entire book, The Tipping Point, to examining how relatively insignificant factors can have profound impact. In scientific terms, this is the concept of "phased transitions" or, as Thomas Kuhn describes them in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, "paradigm shifts." Ogle offers several examples that illustrate how tipping points within the process of phased transitions "violate what scientists used to think of as a fundamental principle of physical systems: that there is a direct, quantifiable relationship between cause and effect."
After I read this passage in Ogle's book (pages 79-95), I set the book down, located my copy of Jacob Bronowski's The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination and reviewed the passages I had highlighted. Although there are no references to Bronowski in Ogle's book, I think this brief excerpt from it helps us to increase our understanding of how we see and make sense of the world is "deeply shaped by the framing that, consciously or not, we unavoidably bring to bear." Bronowski asserts that "even the perception of the senses is governed by mechanisms which make our knowledge of the outside world highly inferential. We do not receive impressions that are elemental. Our sense impressions are themselves constructed by the nervous system in such a way that they automatically carry with them an interpretation of what they see or hear or feel."
Recall Ogle's observation noted previous that "the mental processes that led to [various creative breakthroughs] have remained largely beyond our grasp." However, there have been some recent developments ("profoundly important advances") that have increased our understanding of those processes. One is the emerging science of networks. It suggests that pattern formation is not random. "Its newly discovered laws have led to two highly significant insights regarding creativity. First, the networks of the extended mind, like all dynamic networks, are self-organizing; they drive their own transformation, thereby enabling the intelligence embedded in the idea-spaces of our smart world to provide a vast and potent external source of creative energy and ideas. Second, the, the human mind's imaginative faculties not only actively piggyback on these dynamics, deriving much of their creative power from them, but turn out to be themselves driven by universal network laws." In other words, the space of ideas "thinks" for each of us.
This is by no means an "easy read." Many will need to re-read it (as did I) to absorb and digest Ogle's rigorous examination of what is indeed "the new science of ideas." He offers several specific strategies that enable his readers to conduct their own examination of that science. When concluding his book, he offers this encouragement: "trust your imaginative faculties as they surf embedded webs of intelligence near and far, and have the confidence that if you're up for the ride, the space of ideas, shaped by the laws of network dynamics, will do most of the hard thinking for you."
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the aforementioned books by Kuhn and Bronowski as well as Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, Andy Clark's Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence, Albert Borgmann's Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium, Gerald M. Edelman's Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind and his more recently published Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge, and The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization co-authored by Thomas Kelley and Jonathan Littman.Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity And the New Science of Ideas Overview

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Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard Review

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Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard Review
Chip and Dan Heath have once again summoned a lively writing style to present a series of compelling insights that make this book even more interesting as well as more valuable than its predecessor, Made to Stick. As they explain in the first chapter, "In this book, we argue that successful changes share a common pattern. They require the leader of change to do three things at once: To change someone's behavior, you've got to change that person's situation...[to cope with the fact that change] is hard because people wear themselves out. And that's the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion...If you want people to change, you must provide crystal clear direction [because what] looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity." Throughout, the Heaths work within a narrative, best viewed as a "three-part framework," as they provide countless real-world (as opposed to hypothetical or theoretical] examples and - to their great credit - also provide a context or frame-of-reference for each.
Moreover, the Heaths invoke a few extended metaphors. The most important of these are the Rider (i.e. our rational side), the Elephant, (i.e. our emotional and instinctive side) and the Path (i.e. the surrounding environment in which change initiatives will be conducted). The challenge is to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path to make change more likely, "no matter what's happening with the Rider and Elephant...If you can do all three at once, dramatic change can happen even if you don't have lots of power or resources behind you."
Donald Berwick offers an excellent case in point. In 2004, in his position as a doctor and the CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), he had developed some ideas as to "how to save lives - massive numbers of lives" and his ideas were so well-supported by research that they were indisputable and yet "little was happening" until he spoke at a professional meeting and proposed six very specific interventions to save lives. Within two months, more than 1,000 hospitals had signed up. Eighteen months later, to the day (June 14, 2006) he had previously announced that he'd promised to return, he announced the results: "Hospitals enrolled in the 100,000 Lives Campaign have collectively prevented an estimated 122,300 avoidable deaths and, as importantly, have begun to institutionalize new standards of care that will continue to save lives and improve health outcomes into the future." He had directed his audience's Riders (i.e. hospital administrators), he had motivated his audience's Elephants by making them feel the compelling need for change, and he had shaped the Path by making it easier for the hospitals to embrace the change. The Heaths offer more than a dozen other prime examples (e.g. Jerry Sternin in Vietnam, the Five-Minute Room Rescue, "Fataki" in Tanzania) that also demonstrate how the same three-part framework resulted in the achievement of major changes elsewhere despite great difficulty.
Near the end of the book, the Heaths summarize the key points they have so thoroughly made while explaining to their reader how to make a switch. "For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting differently. Maybe it's you, maybe it's your team. Picture the person (or people). Each has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side. You've got to reach both. And you've also got to clear the way for them to succeed." By now, the Heaths have explained how others have directed the Rider, motivated the Elephant, and shaped the Path. They conclude their book with a Q&A section during which they advise how to resolve twelve problems that people most often encounter as they fight for change. They suggest, and I agree, that this advice "won't make sense to anybody who hasn't read the book." The same can probably be said about much of what I have shared in this review.
Although, in my opinion, this is one of the most important business books published during the last several years, no commentary such as mine can do full justice to it. It simply must be read and read carefully, preferably then re-read carefully. Otherwise, it makes no sense to visit www.switchthebook.com/resources to obtain additional information and assistance.
I offer my congratulations to Chip and Dan Heath on a brilliant achievement. Bravo!Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard Overview

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