Any book by John Cleese is expected to be very entertaining.
This book is also informative and helpful. John Cleese was a founder of Monty
Python comedy troupe. He is also a sought-after speaker on various things which
applies to the business world, especially regarding our decision-making acumen,
or lack of acumen. He is, to use the overused cliché, an out of the box thinker,
a renaissance man.
This is a very short book where Cleese dives into what it
means to be creative, he doesn't do it in a pedantic way, instead he does it in
his own playful way. The combination is a
winning one, we are entertained as well as informed.
The first couple of chapters sets the stage: The Creative
Mindset and Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind. The Creative Mindset sets
the tone for the rest of the book: what is a creative mindset and how does one
get into a creative mindset? The Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind chapter
describes the dichotomy that many imposes on the way the brain operates. While
I ascribe to a more continuous thinking process for us humans, it is a popular belief,
and I will not quibble. The Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind idea seems like it
follows the Kahneman and Tversky formulation of the System 1 and System 2 dichotomy,
it is, and it isn’t, there are differences. Cleese focuses on how Tortoise Mind
can liberate the mind by setting aside our self-imposed constraints and
hopefully challenge our biases in order to be more creative. The Tortoise Mind
can be more wandering by nature, it is assessing all the different
possibilities that are available to us, it is allowed to be playful. This is not
completely what Kahneman and Tversky talks about, yet it also is in a different
way. In my understanding System 2 is the rational thought process while Tortoise
Mind is the mind where you do have time to explore, to ask silly questions, to make minds wander,
to be playful, and to get at the unconventional solutions.
This exploration of all the solution space allows the mind to generate all solutions, ignoring
the usual human imposed constraints. This is a wonderful way of explaining how
creativity works. Our mental processes are often constrained by our biases, by
our fears, and by anything else we can find to curtail the number of possibilities
that occurs in our mind just so that we can to get at a solution, any solution.
Cleese is of the opinion that we need to just let it all go, to let our mind
wander, and to let that wondering create as many different solutions as possible
and THEN we could all sort it out later as we apply our Hare Brain to filter
out the unreasonable, the untenable, and the unrealistic.
The rest of the book consists of many different advices that
Cleese offers up as useful tricks to create that Tortoise Mind. They are
useful, funny, and while some of them are counter intuitive, they perfect sense when Cleese explains it. This is a section where
you will often sit back and slap your forehead and exclaim: holy cow, why
didn't I think of that? Well there is a reason for that and hopefully by the
time you are done with this little book you will be able to explore your own
creative mind fruitfully.
This is a book that I will be referring to many times in the
future to help me release the constraints that I have, as well as being quite entertained.
