Too Fast to Think: How to Reclaim Your Creativity in a Hyper-connected Work Culture - Softcover

Lewis, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0749478861 ISBN 13: 9780749478865

Publisher: Kogan Page, 2016

Synopsis

Our lives are getting faster and faster. We are engulfed in constant distraction from email, social media and our 'always on' work culture. We are too busy, too overloaded with information and too focused on analytical left-brain thinking processes to be creative. Too Fast to Think exposes how our current work practices, media culture and education systems are detrimental to innovation. The speed and noise of modern life is undermining the clarity and quiet that is essential to power individual thought. Our best ideas are often generated when we are free to think diffusely, in an uninterrupted environment, which is why moments of inspiration so often occur in places completely separate to our offices.

To reclaim creativity, Too Fast to Think teaches you how to retrain your brain into allowing creative ideas to emerge, before they are shut down by interruption, distraction or the self-doubt of your over-rational brain. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to maximize their creative potential, as well as that of their team. Supported by cutting-edge research from the University of the Arts London and insightful interviews with business leaders, academics, artists, politicians and psychologists, Chris Lewis takes a holistic approach to explain the 8 crucial traits that are inherently linked to creation and innovation.

About this title

Review:

"Too Fast to Think crackles with good ideas and advice and for creative thinkers. It's a must read for the media, politicians and business people alike" (Baroness Jenkin of Kennington)

"Too Fast to Think perfectly captures the zeitgeist of our exhausted world. It resonated profoundly with me both as an entrepreneur and as a parent" (Alison Cork, entrepreneur, writer, broadcaster)

"Chris Lewis gives us permission to Stop, Think, Dream, Be and shows us how to replace Hurry Sickness with creative success. His examples are universal and global, relevant to all people and professions" (Dr Pippa Malmgren Former US Presidential Advisor and author of 'Signals: How Everyday Signs Can Help Us Navigate the World's Turbulent Economy')

"Time is a luxury that's available to everyone if they have the discipline to use it properly. In the digital age, our decisions are pressurised by the speed of events. Making the time to really think is the key to success. The author is a living testament to this philosophy" (Lord Bell, Executive Chairman Bell Pottinger.)

"Chris Lewis's book is an aide memoir to the importance and enriching power of creativity in business. Lewis has identified a growing trend that industry is finding it hard to adapt to new communications challenges and are having difficulties developing creative ideas, strategies and the necessary infrastructure to meet those challenges. I recommend his bold ambition to renew our confidence in creativity" (Mark Borkowski, Publicist, author and entrepreneur)

"Too Fast to Think is an important reminder that the time of getting our best ideas in the work environment has passed. The proximity gained from the internet and social media has come at the price of continual disruption and the risk that "we shut out what we don't agree with". The insights Chris Lewis provides from both the theory and the people trying to take a different path underscore the importance of not neglecting that which makes us creative" (Charlotte Lindsey-Curtet, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).)

"I loved this book! This fascinating book bubbles with the effervescence of a creative mind. Chris would want you to explore his ideas, extract your own, expand on them, share them and explode his thinking. Hell, blow them up! As George Bernard Shaw's reflected, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him...the unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man." Chris Lewis provides a timely and apposite reminder for all leaders of the need to confront conventional practices. He does so through an infectious curiosity and shares bold insights, both pragmatic and paradoxical, to challenge us all to take time to think" (Squadron Leader John Peters)

"We neglect holism at our peril. In our complex world only a life lived in the round can give us the connections and space for reflection that nurture creativity and compassion. Chris Lewis has seen the danger of being overwhelmed by the particular and the need to restore the balanced life necessary for human flourishing and for meeting the global challenges before us" (Richard Chartres, The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, Bishop of London)

Book Description:

Provides an insightful and emotive account of how our current work practices of constant interruption, 24/7 connectivity and a reductive emphasis on 'productivity' have a detrimental effect on our capacities to think creatively

Proposes a tried and tested model, based on cutting-edge research from the University of the Arts London, of the eight creative traits (belief, quiet, dreaming, release, relaxation, repetition, play, teaching) that leaders need to spark creativity in themselves, their teams and their organization as a whole

Allows readers to rebalance their approach to creativity through understanding how left and right brain processes work, to help them perform at their creative best and generate new ideas and innovations

Contains candid interviews from a diverse range of business leaders, artists, academics, psychologists, politicians and military and religious figures to provide fascinating personal accounts of creativity, idea development and leadership. Interviewees include award-winning film director Tony Palmer, CEO and founder of WPP Sir Martin Sorrell, co-founder of Pret-a-Manger Sinclair Beecham, director of VCU Brandcenter Helyane Spivak, author and computer scientist Ray Kurzweil and Professor Sir Cary Cooper

Includes a foreword by Sir Ken Robinson - author, speaker and international adviser on education in the arts to governments. His TED talk 'Do schools kill creativity?' has received over 39 million views and he has over 343,000 Twitter followers

About this edition

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0749478861
• ISBN 13: 9780749478865
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232