16 Mar The Medici Effect

…a book review by Jim Gordon

The premise of this excellent book is that potential and powerful creativity lie at the intersection of different fields of study, disciplines, and differences of many kinds.

The Medici family of fourteenth century Florence funded creators from a wide range of disciplines: sculptors, artists, financiers, poets, scientists, philosophers, and architects. The support from this family and a few others facilitated experts in these fields converging on Florence—interacting, learning, and creating. They broke down barriers between disciplines and a new burst of creativity took place that fueled the Renaissance and opened up a new world of ideas and creativity.

These bursts of creativity and newness of thinking don’t appear through incremental improvement in one direction—but spontaneously at the intersection of totally different and unrelated areas. It’s not thinking out of the box: its thinking along the edge of two boxes set up beside each other!

Steps toward the Medici Effect:

• learn to think outside normal association patterns
• exercise humility—perhaps we don’t know as much as we might think
• continue on as a life-long learner
• overdose on self-study
• accept that the quality of ideas generated is directly related to the quantity of ideas generated

Interested in becoming more creative? This book is a must-read for you!

No doubt, The Medici Effect will propel you toward being a better learner, leader, and creator!