Toolbox for the Mind is a different kind of book. It aims to help you find innovative solutions to today’s problems using an interdisciplinary approach. The book examines how to think creatively and come up with innovative solutions through a variety of tools. These tools, principles, or guidelines are placed throughout the chapters to highlight essential aspects. For instance, chapter 1 stresses the importance of being able to ask good questions as an essential component of thinking creatively. A critical step in this process is to ASK WHY BEFORE ASKING HOW.
Some involve adopting a different perspective on a problem and how to solve it. Others ask you to approach your task in a different way. Some of these tool boxes may be familiar; others are quite unique. More familiar ones might be the need to PROVIDE CONTINUAL FEEDBACK. Others are unlikely to have been seen before and involve the need to VALUE MUTATIONS or to CREATE MANAGEABLE ADVERSITY and SEEK ADAPTIVE CHALLENGES. These tools can and have helped individuals, groups, and large organizations find novel solutions and produce dramatic innovations. Chapters within the book contain numerous other practical and applied techniques. The last chapter includes a collection of techniques and exercises that either were mentioned in earlier chapters or ones that complement the ones already demonstrated.
Toolbox for the Mind is divided into three major sections. The first section of chapters examines the process of creativity and innovative thinking by exploring what we call your creativity zone. Entering the zone helps you find new perspectives on your problem or helps you approach a problem from a different viewpoint. Chapters 3 and 4 provide you with a wide range of ways to help you find these new solutions.
The toolbox can provide some new perspectives because it is interdisciplinary. It draws on various disciplines including biology, physics, and history to suggest a wide range of ways for solving problems. For instance, chapter 5 discussed Darwin and evolutionary biology as a way of finding new solutions. The concepts of manageable adversity and adaptive challenges are the result of a transfer of knowledge from one discipline to management.
The second section of the book is a how-to approach. It is designed to provide you with ideas for improving product, process, and services by using some of the knowledge acquired in earlier chapters. Tools like: “Being Sensitive to Small Changes, Separating Responsibility and Accountability and Using Broad Basic Rules” were all distilled from knowledge acquired in previous chapters.
One of many examples of using some of these tools involved Kodak managers in its consumer imaging business who asked, “What if we could make cameras that were disposable?” or when Nike asked, “Would consumers pay over $100 (three times the price of an acceptable alternative) for a high performance athletic shoe?” These are good examples of visualizing an ideal future by framing a question. They then worked backwards to the present day to determine what was required for this future state (1). Other examples, too numerous to mention, show the practical application of these techniques.
The final section is devoted to how to successfully implement innovative solutions. Tools within this area, among others, include: “Managing the Direction, Focusing on Results-Oriented Objectives and Knowing Your Priories and Trade-Offs” to mention just a few. The primary purpose is to both get your creative ideas implemented and encourage groups and organizations to continue to change and be competitive.
It was Abraham Maslow who was reported to have once said, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as a nail.” The world is full of nails, but not every problem can be solved by a hammer or by the common way you solve problems. Often we must find new solutions to today’s problems. This book aims to give you a tool belt full of new tools to bring to these old and future problems.
1. Krinsky, Robert. 1997. When world’s collide: The uneasy fusion of strategy and innovation. Strategy and Leadership 25, no. 4 (July-August)