Farliga Idéer (Alf Rehn)

Reading a book in my first language was refreshing. This book on creativity and innovation has been published in English as well, but since the original version was written in Swedish, I decided to read that version.

This is a book that promises to shock and disgust. The author sets out to shake the current corporate culture regarding creativity and innovation, which in his opinion is too nice, consensus-seeking and comfortable. Parallels are drawn to punk rock and medieval heretics, all in the hope of awakening passion in a culture that has become luke warm and "lagom".

One interesting detail is the definitions the author uses for the term creativity and innovation respectively. Creativity is the unhampered creation of new and radical ideas. Innovation is creativity with a touch of realism, which imposes limitations on the ideation process with the purpose of reaching tangible results. In other words, creativity is thinking new stuff up, while innovation is getting new things done (my interpretation of the author's definitions.)

Was I shocked and shaken by this book? Not really. I still think this is an important contribution to the discourse around innovation and creativity. I fully agree with the author that it is far too easy to hop on the cozy creativity band wagon, and buy the message from nice creativity consultants with fun games geared towards making the audience feel good about themselves. On the other hand, I worry a bit about the new generation of creativity consultants that this school of thought may foster. It's far too easy to create a cargo cult around this message, where conflict and friction are artificially introduced, just because Alf Rehn says you can't have creativity without it.