Unlocking Creativity

Have you ever wondered why so many organizations talk endlessly about innovation but seem to kill creative ideas before they take off? In Unlocking Creativity, Michael A. Roberto argues that the greatest threat to creativity isn’t a lack of talent or resources—it’s the collective mindset that shapes how organizations think, decide, and act. His central claim is that even brilliant teams can suffocate innovation when entrenched assumptions, rigid planning habits, and safe decision-making take hold.

Roberto contends that creativity isn’t something individuals are born with—it’s a capacity that flourishes (or dies) based on context. Instead of frantically recruiting “creative geniuses,” leaders should focus on removing the invisible mental and structural barriers that inhibit original thought. Using hundreds of vivid stories—from Manet’s rejected paintings to Pixar’s team meetings—he reveals how six pervasive organizational mindsets choke creative energy and what leaders can do to reverse them.

Escaping the Resistance to New Ideas

The book opens with a historical allegory that feels strikingly modern: Édouard Manet’s 1863 painting Le Bain was rejected by the establishment as “shameful” and “crude.” Today, companies mirror those Parisian jurors who dismissed the Impressionists—they reject new ideas that defy convention. Roberto shows that this pattern repeats across domains: scientists like Alfred Wegener (continental drift), Barry Marshall (ulcers and bacteria), and entrepreneurs like Airbnb’s founders all faced elite experts who scoffed at disruptive concepts.

Why? Experts, Roberto explains, fall prey to what Victor Ottati calls the “earned dogmatism effect”—the more expertise we gain, the more certain and close-minded we become. Familiarity gives us permission to stop questioning our assumptions. Drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s ideas about paradigm shifts, Roberto reminds us that revolutions in art, science, and business almost always come from outsiders who aren’t saddled with “the rules of the game.”

The Real Problem: The Situation, Not the People

One of Roberto’s boldest arguments is that corporate leaders misdiagnose their creativity crisis—they think they have a people problem, when they actually have a context problem. Most firms already employ talented, curious individuals, but their environment punishes risk-taking, rewards conformity, and prizes predictability over discovery. The author cites a famous psychology experiment: seminary students, even those preparing a talk on the Good Samaritan, ignored a suffering man in their path when they were told to hurry. The situation—not their morals—determined their behavior. Similarly, organizations blame individuals for lacking innovation while structuring work and rewards to discourage it.

This insight reframes creativity as a systemic leadership endeavor rather than an individual trait. When leaders obsess over forecasts, benchmarks, or performance control (themes explored in later chapters), they inadvertently quash experimentation. What teams need instead is psychological safety, permission to fail, and structures designed for curiosity rather than compliance.

The Six Mindsets Blocking Creativity

To help leaders recognize the traps that strangle innovation, Roberto introduces six mental models that dominate most organizations:

• The Linear Mindset – a belief that creativity follows tidy stages of plan–analyze–execute, when in reality, breakthroughs emerge through nonlinear trial and error.
• The Benchmarking Mindset – the tendency to imitate competitors’ best practices rather than forging new paths.
• The Prediction Mindset – obsession with forecasts and certainty, which discourages bold experimentation.
• The Structural Mindset – faith in reorganizations and hierarchy changes as a shortcut to innovation.
• The Focus Mindset – belief that creativity requires obsessive concentration, ignoring the importance of psychological distance and incubation.
• The Naysayer Mindset – misuse of critical thinking and devil’s advocacy that turns healthy dissent into idea killing.

Each mindset represents a subtle distortion of a good thing. Planning, benchmarking, focus, and critique all have legitimate value—but when embraced dogmatically, they suppress originality and risk-taking. Across the book’s case studies—from Google’s design sprints and Pixar’s “Braintrust” meetings to Trader Joe’s and Intuit’s design revolutions—Roberto shows how shifting these mindsets unleashes curiosity, iterative learning, and responsible experimentation.

Most leaders love plans, roadmaps, and milestones. But Michael Roberto demonstrates that this obsession with straight lines suffocates real innovation. Through the lens of Leonardo da Vinci’s meandering genius and the contemporary design thinking movement, he shows that creativity is rarely clean or sequential—it’s messy, iterative, and experimental.

Leonardo’s Nonlinear Genius

Da Vinci, Roberto notes, was a chronic experimenter who thrived on “learning by doing.” His process blended art and science—dissecting cadavers to understand anatomy one day, designing flying machines the next. He constantly iterated using sketches and prototypes, never truly finishing his masterpieces like the Mona Lisa. His curiosity-driven cycle of test, reflect, and adapt anticipated today’s agile and design thinking methodologies centuries in advance.

In contrast, modern corporations want predictability. They prefer detailed Gantt charts to trial and error. As Harvard’s Leonard Schlesinger once quipped, “Most corporate planning is like a ritual rain dance—it makes those who engage in it feel in control.” The comfort of control comes at the cost of discovery.

Design Thinking and Iteration

Roberto connects Leonardo’s ethos to IDEO’s contemporary success. Design thinking—now popularized by Stanford’s d.school—thrives on empathy, rapid prototyping, and iterative learning. The five-stage process (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test) deliberately avoids linearity. Teams move back and forth, learning through small, inexpensive experiments rather than grand plans. This same approach, when applied to business strategy or customer experience, helps companies like Intuit and IBM rediscover growth.

Still, Roberto warns that many firms adopt design thinking as a rigid five-step formula, turning it ironically into a linear process again. He calls this the “paint-by-numbers” trap—when creativity is boxed into management templates.

Why We Resist Iteration

Most people, Roberto explains, genuinely hate iteration. We fall in love with our first ideas and reject feedback that threatens them. He discusses psychological barriers such as the sunk-cost trap (our tendency to persist with bad ideas because of past investment) and the fundamental attribution error (blaming external forces rather than our own misjudgments). Worse, we actively avoid people who critique us, surrounding ourselves with agreeable colleagues.

To illustrate the contrast between linear and iterative thinkers, Roberto shares the “Marshmallow Challenge.” Business students meticulously plan before building a spaghetti tower—only to watch it collapse. In contrast, kindergarteners succeed because they keep testing, learning, and rebuilding. Their “why/potential” mindset (“Why might this work?”) trumps the adult “how/best” mindset (“What’s the perfect solution?”). Innovation, he concludes, depends not on detailed analysis but on playful inquiry.

Benchmarking sounds sensible—learn from the best and emulate what works. But Roberto argues that blind imitation can trap companies in what he calls the "cattle herd of mediocrity." Drawing on examples from Hollywood, Stihl, and Planet Fitness, he shows that imitation erodes differentiation and dulls imagination.

The Hollywood Herd

In television, as scholar Robert Kennedy discovered, networks have spent decades mimicking their rivals despite clear evidence that original programming performs better. After Survivor’s success, a flood of reality shows followed—most of which failed miserably. The industry’s herd mentality illustrates Roberto’s point: imitation feels safer than originality, but it rarely pays.

In business, benchmarking creates the same effect. When each company races to match every competitor’s strength, they become “well-rounded” but indistinguishable. Marketing professor Youngme Moon calls this the “curse of homogenization”: improvement along competitors’ metrics erases what makes you unique.

Different by Design

The most distinctive firms turn their backs on industry convention. Roberto profiles Stihl, a chainsaw manufacturer that refuses to sell in big-box stores, preferring local dealers who teach customers how to use and maintain products. By choosing not to copy, Stihl built a fiercely loyal niche and premium reputation. Similarly, Planet Fitness rejected the fitness industry’s obsession with hardcore athletes. Instead of intimidating newcomers, it redefined gyms as “judgment-free zones”—offering pizza nights and soft lighting. These counterintuitive moves worked precisely because leaders broadened their view of competitors: Planet Fitness realized its real rivals were not other gyms, but restaurants, couches, and Netflix, the forces that keep people sedentary.

Roberto also urges companies to learn from analogous fields—like Reebok’s designers who borrowed ideas from inflatable medical devices to create the Pump sneaker—rather than fixating on direct competitors. True innovation, he writes, lies in recombining old parts in new ways (echoing Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From).

“Well-meaning efforts to monitor your competitive position can turn into a cattle prod for homogenization.” – Youngme Moon

For leaders, the lesson is simple but challenging: break free from benchmarking’s comfort zone. Define your success against possibilities, not peers. Ask what unique value only you can offer, even if it means rejecting the industry rulebook.

Why do executives demand precise forecasts about a world that refuses to obey them? Roberto calls this the Prediction Mindset: a deep human craving for certainty and control that blinds us to how little we can actually foresee. From Wall Street analysts to movie studios and corporate strategists, he shows how this obsession with prediction undermines experimentation.

Nobody Knows Anything

In film, as writer William Goldman famously said, “Nobody knows anything.” Hollywood veterans couldn’t predict Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark’s success any more than they foresaw Gigli’s or Cutthroat Island’s collapse. Roberto uses these stories to show how smart people overestimate their foresight. The same holds true in professional sports (where data proves NFL draft picks perform no better than chance) and even in economic forecasting, where psychologist Philip Tetlock found that experts’ predictions were barely more accurate than random guessing.

The Need for Certainty and Its Dangers

Behind this addiction to forecasting lies psychology. Humans, Roberto notes, need cognitive closure (Arie Kruglanski) and a sense of control. Experiments by Ellen Langer and Adam Galinsky proved that when people lose control, they invent patterns from noise—“reading tea leaves” to ease anxiety. Consequently, corporations cling to spreadsheets and projections even when the data is meaningless.

How Forecast Mania Cripples Innovation

Nowhere is this addiction more toxic than in funding new ideas. Leaders demand that projects “move the needle”—project $50+ million revenues before they’ll invest. The case of Michael Eisner’s Disney shows the peril: his relentless 20% annual growth target pressured the company into reckless acquisitions and stifled creative risk-taking after early successes. Overconfidence in forecasts created short-term wins and long-term stagnation.

Roberto’s examples—from unrealistic pharmaceutical sales forecasts to Trader Joe’s slow rise—demonstrate that revolutionary ideas often start small. They don’t “move the needle” right away; they ripen through patient experimentation and customer listening. Innovation happens not because someone predicted success but because leaders allowed space for low-confidence bets to evolve.

The cure for the prediction mindset? Replace five-year fantasies with real-time learning loops. Focus on testing assumptions quickly, learning from users, and doubling down on what works. As Roberto quotes Silicon Valley’s Steve Blank, “No one besides venture capitalists and the late Soviet Union requires five-year plans to forecast complete unknowns.”

When in doubt, many CEOs reorder their org charts, believing that creativity will sprout from new boxes and titles. Roberto demolishes this myth through examples like Zappos, Sony, and Google, showing that structure alone neither kills nor creates innovation—people’s climate, norms, and work design do.

When Hierarchy Helps (and Hurts)

Holacracy—the radical self-management system adopted by Zappos—was supposed to unleash empowerment. Instead, chaos ensued: employees left en masse, confused by circular roles and endless meetings. Yet Roberto cautions against blaming hierarchy itself. Studies he cites show that well-defined pecking orders, such as NBA teams with clear star roles, outperform egalitarian ones when interdependence is high. Conversely, rigid hierarchies like the doomed 1996 Everest expedition or NASA’s Columbia shuttle disaster crush dissent and risk awareness.

The Real Building Blocks of Creative Teams

True innovation thrives on climate, not charts. Roberto showcases Google’s Project Aristotle, which revealed that team success depends on psychological safety, not talent density. Harvard’s Amy Edmondson defines it as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” In psychologically safe teams, members can admit mistakes, ask naive questions, or show unpolished ideas without fear of ridicule. This climate, not flatter hierarchy, drives learning and creativity.

Ground Rules and Designed Work

At Pixar, Ed Catmull institutionalized constructive candor through the “Braintrust,” whose rules—no authority, peer-to-peer critique, mutual success—allow directors to iterate openly without fear. IDEO likewise enforces brainstorming rules (“defer judgment,” “go for quantity,” “build on others’ ideas”) to preserve creative safety. Roberto argues that these norms, not formal hierarchies, keep conflict productive. Meanwhile, work design research by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham confirms that creativity rises when roles combine autonomy, task variety, purpose, and feedback—conditions that unleash intrinsic motivation.

The takeaway? Leaders should stop redrawing org charts and start shaping culture. Structure is a framework; climate is the oxygen. Reorganizations may feel decisive, but only trust, clarity, and autonomy sustain real creative performance.

When we think of creativity, we imagine seclusion—a band in a castle, a team in a retreat, a designer in a lab. Roberto argues that focus, while valuable, can become claustrophobic. The most creative minds toggle between intense concentration and deliberate distance.

From Slane Castle to the War Room

U2’s album The Unforgettable Fire was born in isolation at Slane Castle, away from daily noise. Similarly, Google’s Jake Knapp developed “design sprints” to combat fragmented workdays. For one intense week, teams unplug, converge in a “war room,” and solve one hard problem through rapid iteration. These examples highlight focus as an antidote to multitasking culture (Gloria Mark’s research finds we switch tasks every 3 minutes; it takes 23 minutes to refocus). Yet, sustained focus has diminishing returns.

When the Tank Runs Dry

Creative masters like Mark Twain and J.R.R. Tolkien knew when to step away. Twain “pigeonholed” manuscripts when inspiration waned, trusting the well to refill. Neuroscientists now call this incubation—letting the subconscious process ideas. Taking walks (like Wordsworth’s 175,000 miles of wanderings) enhances this mental replenishment. As brain researcher Srini Pillay puts it, toggling between focus and unfocus “enhances creativity and decision-making.”

Psychological Distance: The Power of Detachment

Roberto draws from social psychology to reveal that distance—social, physical, or temporal—sparks originality. People solve problems more creatively when imagining them on someone else’s behalf (Evan Polman’s “prisoner in the tower” study) or picturing themselves as an eccentric poet rather than a rigid librarian. Traveling also fuels creativity: fashion designers who lived abroad produced more innovative work, and The Beatles’ songwriting soared after their meditative retreat in India.

Even time travel boosts imagination. Amazon’s “working backwards” process has teams write a future press release before coding a new product. This temporal distance helps innovators think abstractly about customers’ future delight. Roberto’s summary principle is simple: focus sharpens; distance expands. The alternation between the two forms the heartbeat of sustained creativity.

Critique can either spark brilliance or smother it. In this final mindset, Roberto explores the paradox of the devil’s advocate: when dissent becomes destructive cynicism. Drawing lessons from military intelligence failures, Google designers, and Theodore Roosevelt’s wisdom, he explains how to create constructive contrarian spaces.

Why We Fear Dissent

The 1973 Yom Kippur War began with an Israeli intelligence failure rooted in groupthink—analysts dismissed warning signs because they all shared the same assumption. To counteract conformity, Israel later institutionalized a “devil’s advocate office.” Similarly, companies like Genentech and MTV founder Bob Pittman ask teams, “What did the dissenter say?” Strategic dissent protects organizations from blind spots and biases.

When Critics Kill Ideas

Yet dissent often turns toxic. Tom Kelley of IDEO warned that habitual devil’s advocates—those who hide behind critique without offering alternatives—become “innovation killers.” In today’s culture of constant review (Amazon stars, Yelp rants), skepticism outpaces creation. Organizations overvalue clever analysis and underreward imaginative problem-solving. Roosevelt’s reminder resonates here: “The credit belongs to the man in the arena.”

How to Practice Constructive Dissent

Roberto outlines how to dissent wisely:

• Rotate the role of devil’s advocate to avoid “broken record” syndrome (Henry Wallich’s fate at the Federal Reserve).
• Use pairs of dissenters for social support—two contrarians, as Solomon Asch’s classic experiments show, can shift the group’s majority view.
• Time critique wisely: adopt a “yes, and” brainstorming phase before analysis begins (a principle borrowed from improv comedy).
• Ask questions rather than making pronouncements. The best devil’s advocates, like Socrates, frame dissent through inquiry (“What if this assumption were false?”).

The goal, Roberto concludes, isn’t to silence critics or banish conflict. It’s to transform skepticism into curiosity. True creative leaders encourage dissent that builds, not breaks, collective imagination—turning every argument into a chance to see the problem anew.

In the closing chapter, Roberto reframes leadership itself: great leaders are great teachers of curiosity. Drawing inspiration from biochemist Jennifer Doudna’s childhood experiments and Montessori’s educational philosophy, he argues that creativity blossoms when leaders act like mentors who ask questions, model vulnerability, and celebrate learning over correctness.

Stirring Curiosity

Neuroscientific research by Matthias Gruber shows that curiosity activates the brain’s reward system, enhancing memory and learning. To harness this power at work, leaders can encourage “wonder walls”—shared spaces (physical or digital) where teams post questions starting with “I wonder why…” or “I wonder if….” These questions shift teams from solution obsession to exploration mode, echoing Peter Drucker’s insight that “finding the right question matters more than finding the right answer.”

Creating a Safe Learning Climate

Roberto emphasizes that leaders should resist answering too quickly. When people discover answers themselves, their motivation and insight deepen. Sharing stories of struggle and failure—like Marie Curie’s experiments or Spanx founder Sara Blakely’s weekly “failure celebrations”—normalizes mistakes as learning, not shame. This aligns with Amy Edmondson’s principle of psychological safety: people must know it’s safe to speak, fail, and try again.

Empathy, Expectation, and Novelty

Through stories of teachers like David Glahe, who visits students’ homes to connect authentically, and executives like Hilton’s Chris Nassetta, who works on hotel floors alongside staff, Roberto illustrates how empathy fuels creative trust. Setting high expectations also matters: research by David Yeager shows that students (or employees) perform better when feedback says, “I know you can reach these standards.” Finally, novelty—new challenges, cross-functional experiences, or travel—keeps curiosity alive. As neuroscientists Nico Bunzeck and Emrah Düzel show, novelty literally lights up learning centers in the brain.

The leader’s greatest reward, Roberto concludes, comes not from personal breakthroughs but from watching others flourish. Like the best teachers, creative leaders transform workplaces into classrooms of lifelong learning—where asking, experimenting, and empathizing become daily habits.