Natalie Nixon - The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work

More Praise for The Creativity Leap

For any of us who feel forced to choose between our creative and analytic selves, this book is a gift, a balm, and an inspiration. Natalies unique approach to rigor and wonder makes her a wise and relatable coach for building creative competency exactly where we are.
Amy Whitaker, author of Art Thinking

In The Creativity Leap, Natalie Nixon seamlessly weaves together stories from her personal history with deep insights born from her research to expand on the definition of a creative type. This book offers a new paradigm to those who desire more expansive thinking, imaginative outcomes, and game-changing results for themselves and their organizations.
Valerie Jacobs, Chief Insight and Innovation Officer, LPK

The Creativity Leap is wondrous in its deft blending of insights from sources as different as jazz musicians and GE Healthcare to shed new light on the process of true innovation. Nixon is rigorous in laying out a practical approach that should convince even the most analytic reader of the business value of creativity.
Derek Newberry, Behavior and Culture Specialist, Boston Consulting Group

In her book The Creativity Leap, Nixon invites us to bring our whole selves to work and to create with curiosity, improvisation, and intuition. Leaders that want to take the professional development of their team personally and see greater innovation in their organizations should read this book.
Erica Keswin, Bestselling author of Bring Your Human to Work

Through insightful stories from her life and innovators across every field, Natalie Nixon shows us how we can build practices that enhance our innate creative competency and provides a valuable reframe on the nature of creativity as the dynamic tension between wonder and rigor. A must-read.
Sarah Brooks, Design Director, IBM

Imagine a world where creativity is exponentially magnified. The Creativity Leap applies methods and insights for creativity in clear, understandable language. Natalie Nixon is a master teacher and has introduced me to that world.
Stephen Spinelli Jr., PhD, President, Babson College

With this long overdue book, Natalie delves deep into skills and perspectives necessary for success in a disrupted and dynamic world. For anyone with a desire to construct artful, impact-driving solutions people choose to lean in to, The Creativity Leap is a must.
Esther Franklin, Executive Vice President, Managing Director, Global Strategy and Cultural Fluency, Spark Foundry

The Creativity Leap quickly gets below the buzzwords of innovation to help leaders develop the necessary practices to uncover growth opportunities unleashing new customer and business value.
Saul Kaplan, founder and Chief Catalyst, Business Innovation Factory

In The Creativity Leap, Natalie Nixon does something brilliant and hereticalshe declares that creativity is a teachable phenomenon. Nixon describes creativity as equal parts structure and looseness, focus and ambiguity, rules and no rules, guiding us to an understanding of this most critical ability and daring to suggest that we all have it in us.
Alan Greenberger, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Drexel University

We know that creativity is key to success in business, yet few companies actively encourage it, and few individuals in the corporate world really know how to develop it. The Creativity Leap is a guide through the process, citing current examples of it in practice and the benefits it brings to individuals and corporations alike.
Sass Brown, eco-fashion writer

THE CREATIVITY LEAP

UNLEASH CURIOSITY, IMPROVISATION, AND INTUITION AT WORK

NATALIE NIXON

The Creativity Leap

Copyright 2020 by Natalie Nixon
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Ordering information for print editions
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First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-8825-6
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-8826-3
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-8827-0
Digital audio ISBN 978-1-5230-8828-7

2020-1

Book producer: Linda Jupiter Productions; Text designer: Kim Scott, Bumpy Design; Cover designer: Irene Morris, Morris Design; Interior illustrator: Pixel Parlor; Copy editor: Elissa Rabellino; Proofreader: Mary Kanable; Indexer: Pamela Erwin

To John, for being my steadfast source of encouragement
through the writing of this book.

And for your daily supply of wonderand rigor.

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.

Pablo Picasso

If youve ever made a running leap, then you are aware that there are several things at work. First, there is vision. You must have your eyes on a prize, somewhere off in the not too far distance. That prize is close enough to be almost within your reach. Second, you have to leap versus just walk or even run to that desired prize, because there is some barrier or impediment that you need to span. Third, leaps often require a running start. A kinesthetic, active motion is needed for you to gather momentum and propel yourself forward. Fourth, leaping requires that you suspend judgment. After doing all the analysis, gauging, and estimating of what it will take to make that leap, faith and intuition must take over. And fifth, leaping only moves you forward. It is impossible to leap backward. You can fall backward, but you cannot leap backward. Leaping requires exorbitant amounts of energy and trust in the unknownand it always propels us into new territory.