Roger von Oech, Creativity

My first job, when I finally stumbled out of university, was with a small creativity and innovation company. It was pretty fantastic – sort of a ‘Fast Company’ company before such a thing existed. And we truly felt that we were in the vanguard for making innovation and its attendant skill creativity important in organizations.

But vanguard? No, not really. Roger von Oech – now he was in the vanguard. He started his company Creative Think back in the mid 1970s and his book A Whack on the Side of the Head is a classic in the creativity field.

In this interview we talk about:

• The power of persistence, and some of the early struggles to get creativity seen as something that matters within organizations
• The importance of embedding creativity into the structures of your organization
• The role of the warrior in helping creativity flourish
• And a certain activity that can increase your ability to be creative (And David Rock agrees.)

You can follow Roger on Twitter at @RogerVonOech and on his website.

Listen to my interview with Roger von Oeck

0:16 Michael introduces Roger von Oech

1:54 Roger’s books A Whack on the Side of the Head, A Kick in the Seat of the Pants,Expect the Unexpected, Creative Whack Pack

4:54 The power of persistence, and some of the early struggles to get creativity seen as something that matters within organizations

14:50 The importance of embedding creativity into the structures of your organization

20:29 The role of the warrior in helping creativity flourish

23:00 And a certain activity that can increase your ability to be creative (And David Rock agrees.)

26:16 How to find out more about Roger von Oech

26:49 Michael closes the interview

If you enjoyed this post, you'll also like:

1. Roger Martin, The Design of Business
2. “Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness” [Great Work Quote]
3. Jody Thompson, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It
4. Steve Shapiro, Goal Free Living
5. James Huffines, Overcoming Resistance to Change