Adam Grant’s Path To Creativity: Do Magic, Read and Procrastinate

OriginalsHere is a brief article by George Anders for Forbes magazine about his online discussion with Adam Grant within the Quora.com community. I also include links to other Anders articles in which he discusses related matters. Grant is a thoughtful and thought—provoking knowledge leader, to be sure, but it is also noteworthy that students have ranked him the best classroom teacher on the Wharton School faculty for the last four consecutive years. That is mighty stout.

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Wharton management professor Adam Grant has cracked The New York Times bestseller list with Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World. What’s in it for you and me? In an online conversation with the Quora.com community today, Grant shares wide-ranging — and slightly eccentric — list of ways that ordinary mortals can boost their own creativity.

Take hobbies, for example. Artistic hobbies “train us to think creatively and give us access to new ways of solving problems,” Grant wrote. He cited research showing that Nobel-laureate scientists are twice as likely to play a musical instrument as their peers, and seven times as likely to draw or paint. Einstein described the theory of relativity as a musical thought; Galileo recognized the moon’s mountains through a telescope because of drawing instruction that made him mindful of shading.

At the top of Grant’s list of creativity-enhancing hobbies: practicing magic. Getting good at the element of surprise “helps with making new scientific discoveries,” he contended. It also reinforces curiosity, focused attention and the desire to have an impact on an audience.

An avid reader himself, Grant repeatedly urged questioners to pick up specific books that could address their questions in more detail. His all-purpose reading list is here.

Dawdling has its role, too, Grant contends. In Originals, he cited the example of Martin Luther King, whose famous “I Have a Dream” speech was on the drawing boards for weeks, but took shape only in a frenzied rush a few hours before it needed to be delivered. There’s an art to getting procrastination right, Grant says, with the key insight as follows:

“Begin a task early, but delay completing it so you have time for incubation and space for divergent thinking.”

The most intriguing question in the Quora session: “What do you personally think is likely true, but you left out of Originals because of lack of evidence.” Grant’s response: “I think the greatest originals break free from mentors earlier than their peers, because they’re itching to start pursuing their own ideas and worried about doing derivative work. But I couldn’t find any supporting evidence.”

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What are the 15 keys to creativity? Here is a direct link to Adam Grant’s “nifty new quiz.”

To learn more about Adam Grant and his work, please click here.

To check out my review of Originals, please click here.

To learn more about George Anders and his work, please click here.

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