Welcome friends! I am excited to host a non-fiction book excerpt today. Monica Kang and I connected for a review request and found that we both love creativity and books about creativity. She has written a book about the same so today I am hosting her to share an excerpt from Rethink Creativity. Let’s first learn about her and her journey with this book and then we will dive into the excerpt.
Get to know the author: Monica H. Kang
Welcome to Armed with A Book, Monica! Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!
Hi. I am Monica H. Kang, the Founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox® and the Author of Rethink Creativity and Have You Seen My Friends?. An internationally recognized expert in workplace creativity, I facilitate culture transformation, leadership development, and team building in a way that is fun, actionable, and relatable.
I work with clients worldwide including Fortune 500 companies, higher education, government, and nonprofits. My work has been recognized by The White House, Ashoka Changemakers, National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), and Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Prior to InnovatorsBox®, I was a nuclear nonproliferation policy expert. I hold an M.A. from SAIS Johns Hopkins University in Strategic Studies and International Economics and a B.A. from Boston University.
What inspired you to write this book?
I wrote Rethink Creativity because I couldn’t find a book that really broke down creativity as a life skill. Most creativity and innovation books focus on problem-solving, product innovation, and company development. Those are all important and great but there wasn’t a book that talked about how you could build your creative thinking muscle as a skill, why that is important, and how you bring that to the workplace. Books were either too business-centric or too artistic-centric. I knew this was needed because not so long ago I was one of the 89% of professionals who felt stuck at work. And I used to love working at nuclear weapon security. Still, I found myself feeling stuck, unmotivated, and not sure why. It wasn’t until I changed my mindset that got me realizing how important creativity, mindset, and way of thinking are. It not only led me to love my job but also doing everything better. Though I got into the journey of building my company InnovatorsBox to help others build a better culture, leadership, teams by bringing creativity, I realized that a book was needed to make learning more accessible.
How long did it take you to write this book, from the first idea to the last edit?
So in 2017, I sat down to start my first draft. The first draft took over 6 months but by the time I met the publisher, I realized we still needed work. Another 6 months of editing and preparing led to our first edition publishing in September 2018. I was over the moon. It was such a humbling opportunity to share how we could rethink creativity, thrive, and inspire others at work. But as I got this book translated into Korean the following year and as the pandemic time continued, I realize a new edition and upgrade was needed which led to writing the 2nd edition that I published in October 2021. It took another year of writing, another 5 months of editing, and a few months of illustrating and animating but I’m extremely excited about this new edition.
What makes your book unique?
It’s unique not only in the content, research, and storytelling but also in its journey. The book encourages readers to walk the talk of creativity by welcoming them into a creative journey! With original illustrations, interactive question prompts, and space to reflect and write, it encourages readers to reflect and reconnect with their creativity! I hope that this could even inspire how we rethink business books as they don’t have to always be black and white and charts.
What’s something you hope readers would take away from it?
This book is for everyone. Leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, teams, young professionals, and students who are looking to be more creative and build a creative workplace for others. I hope that one reader and one community at a time we could inspire more readers to rethink creativity and build a workplace for all together.
Do you have a favourite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?
One of my favorite quotes is “It’s time we live as a human being, not as a human-doing.” I hope more people will be encouraged to tap into their full creative lives because of this book.
Rethink Creativity
Innovation is not born from fancy slogans, being artistic, or taking risks all the time. It’s born out of people. People who dare to ask questions, try something different, are curious about the difference, and courageously face changes. Everyone is creative. But only a company that fully believes in that, fosters an inclusive, safe environment, and allows diverse voices to exist will be able to unlock his or her company’s creative potential.
So where do you start to rethink creativity? Two places: Invest in your team members as a leader and invest in yourself as an innovator. Monica H. Kang, the creativity workplace expert and Founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox(R), shares that the commonalities are your mindset and intention. How determined are you to live your best creative life? How much do you really want to unlock your team’s best talent potential? The possibilities are limitless if you choose to invest in it.
To reflect on the immense changes in the world since the original publication of Rethink Creativity(TM), Kang shares more stories, strategies, and thought-provoking questions in this revised second edition that you could use to change your routine and how you lead your team.
Content Notes: None noted by the author.
Book Excerpt
Ch 5: Constraints—Your New Best Friend
“But out of limitation comes creativity.”
Debbie Allen, Actress, Choreographer
What is your first, knee-jerk reaction to tough situations and challenges at work? Do you procrastinate, delay making decisions, or complain to your colleagues? OR do you express gratitude and excitement for the opportunity to test your skills and flex your creative mindset?
Not many of us are exactly thrilled when we face unpleasant surprises, difficult situations, and complicated problems. It’s one thing to watch a movie and read stories about other people overcoming a tough period and being inspired by it. But it’s completely another to be the one in the story. In the past, I have definitely felt unprepared, ill-equipped, exhausted, or stressed (or all of the above) because I had no idea when I would get to the end of the “tunnel.” Or if there was an end at all.
What if I told you that this is the prime time to be creative?
I know you want to shake your head in denial. It does not feel logical. But this is the very reason it works. Creativity is not logical. You are supposed to find something new out of existing resources or circumstances. That’s why it sometimes feels weird or tense. We are more likely to discover unexpected solutions in high-pressure situations because it is unlikely that we can solve them in the usual ways. At the end of the day, that’s where we find the unexpected answers.
I’ve seen this again and again when I do creative exercises in my workshops and speaking sessions. The best, most wild ideas often come at the very end of the session when I tell the group that they have 20 seconds left. While they feel tense with the limited time, they also share how often this pushes them to let go of expectations of perfection and hesitation in order to focus on delivering. Prioritizing doing over thinking permits them to think of pretty cool ideas that bring critical insights and new directions—better than the ones they thought of when they had a lot more time.
Think about it. They had the same resources, they are the same people, but they had a harder time thinking about an innovative idea at the beginning because they still had a lot of time to overthink and stop themselves from being too silly.
Let’s look at a real example you can relate to. Think of the last time you did something brilliant and creative. What was that moment like? I’m guessing you probably had to tie different information, knowledge, and experience into addressing the problem. You probably had to add a bit of creativity to think of something different. But ultimately, you still had to choose one way to tackle it. That decision you made was probably defined by limited time, resources, and other constraints. You also probably knew that out of all your ideas, you had to choose one.
Ruth Noller, a creative researcher who completed many studies in the 1950s, beautifully explains this in her creativity formula:
C = f(x)(K, I, and E)
C (the form of creativity) is based on K (knowledge), I (imagination), and E (evaluation). No matter how many good ideas or how imaginative you are, if you are not making a decision or taking action, your innovative thoughts will stay as ideas; they will not flourish. And knowing that innovation is born out of creativity, you can’t be innovative without constraints.
This is why companies are discovering how putting time and budget constraints on a project can be an eye-opening experience. In fact, a friend tried this and was excited to see the result. She told her team that they had six months to work on a project and had less than $50,000 to spend. Everyone thought she was crazy. Traditionally, projects of the scope she had in mind in the technical industry would take two years and easily $1 million. But she did not have the time and needed to find a working solution, fast. Her team members complained, saying that it was impossible. But she promised two things that helped change the narrative; “I have your back and you can change some of the rules to get there.” Did they reach their goal? Yes, in fact they spent $10,000 less than what they originally expected, and the working prototype was immediately implemented in the factory.
As a result of this experiment, the company has changed the way it develops prototypes, which has hugely impacted productivity, product development, and revenue. Was it a risk? Yes. Could she have put forward an impossible demand? Yes. But without trying something like this you will never know what’s possible. So, trying something small and experimenting with different constraints is a critical start.
Interested?
Rethink Creativity is already on my list to read in the coming year! You can bookmark it too on Goodreads. You can also check out the website for this book. It has free resources. Find it on Amazon, YouTube and Audible. Also check out the InnovatorsBox website for details. Connect with Monica on Twitter and Instagram as Monica H. Kang ✨ (@hi.mhk) and Rethink Creativity 👩🏻✨ (@rethink.creativity).
If you are an indie author and would like to do a book excerpt, check out my work with me page for details. Happy reading!
Banner Image: Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash
Be First to Comment