Essence of Creativity: A Guide to Tackling Difficult Problems Book

Like many books in this genre (self-help/business), this whole book can be summed up in one or two points which the author repeats again and again for three hundred-some pages. In this specific case, they are "Take responsibility (even if you're not technically responsible)" and "Don't be an asshole". As valuable as these points are, both of them should come naturally to people who have an ounce of common sense and five minutes to sit and think (about how to go through life and treat other people).

The rest of the book can be categorized up in three points:

1. Pointless anecdotes (most of which boil down to "This is not your fault but it's in your lap now because you work in a crappy company, so you have to take responsibility and fix it because no-one else will!")
2. Asinine imaginary dialogues between complete imaginary dickheads (which always end with the lesson of "Hey now, don't be an asshole!")
3. Excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita and The Art of War (how original! A business book quoting Sun Tzu!) so that the author can differentiate himself and his book among the million other books in its category as "spiritual" and "conscious". I think he would have squeezed in "mindful" in there somewhere if that phrase had been in vogue back in 2006.

I also realize that this review is a bit harsh, which means I need to work more on not being an asshole. I normally don't write reviews for anything, but the inanity of this book actually gave me energy and I couldn't stop myself from writing this review.

I guess it's my fault for reading this type of "self-help/business" book (see, I'm taking responsibility!) even though I know that almost all of them work on the same bullshit formula (1. Take simple idea which is basically common sense. 2. Express said idea in as many different sentences as possible until you have something that resembles a book. 3. Profit!)

Anyway, if you want to go through a whole book thinking "how many different ways can you repeat a point you explained in the first chapter", then you will absolutely love this. If you are sick of self-help books which can (and should) be whittled down to 10-15% of their original size, then feel free to skip this one. Also, if you've read this book and gone "wow, I've never looked at life/business from this perspective before" more than once or twice, then god help us and the business world in general for having a sociopath like you in it.