Creating with Others: The Practice of Imagination in Life, Art, and the Workplace

I found this book a delightful read. It's filled with practical ideas and reflections about creativity, collaboration, and leadership. It's also an eminently browsable book - one can focus on a given chapter and come away with insights that speak directly to a current project. I think one of the book's strengths is McNiff's way of allowing many of the people in it, including himself, to speak directly to the reader. Another distinctive aspect is McNiff's creative sensibility - he sees creativity as the substance of everyday living rather than an "add-on" or enhancement to our lives. Hence the importance of collaboration, which enables us to generate creative energy in a number of personal contexts. Eventually, these contexts feed one another and produce a gestalt effect in which the individual becomes a powerful creative engine in his or her own right rather than simply a creative practitioner in a specific field. This is an eminently practical book for business people, artists, therapists, and just about anyone who recognizes the universal benefits of committing themselves to creative work and who might be looking for practical advice on working creatively with others.

The author breaks new ground in his exploration of creativity as a transformative agent. In this book creativity becomes a transformative agent in the workplace, the office, and the studio and the author skillfully demonstrates how this transformative agent is the result of "creating with others." In contrast to the notion that imagination and creativity occur in isolation, McNiff brings to light the concept that through creating together, we naturally gain energies and inspiration from those with whom we collaborate and commune. This book's appeal comes from the numerous examples that the author provides and weaves throughout the text. While those with an artistic bent may want to keep this book in their studios, those who work in business, the laboratory, or an educational institution will want to keep it on their desk, benches, or in their briefcases. The ideas in this book recharged my imagination and reinspired the creative source within, particularly in running my own business as well as daily life.

Shaun McNiff has given his readers another pearl in what is becoming a long strand of outstanding contributions to the world. This new book is an intriguing and thoughful and application of his ideas that have evolved in over 30 years of work with groups struggling to ignite their creativity. This book explores new territory as he applies his experience and unique perspectives to creative life in the workplace. His passion for unleashing the power of creative thinking and authentic being in the workplace, and in all of life, is potentially a significant contribution to organizations in need of revitalization and individuals in search of meaning in their lives. In many ways I find McNiff's creative practices, as presented in this book, to be alligned with David Whyte's poetic call for rediscovery of soul in the work place in The Heart Aroused. Creating With Others may challenge some managers and organizational leaders who seek more traditional and shallow leadership initiatives. A key concept that McNiff proposes is that "to imagine is to let go." He intertwines the phenomena of focus and release of control as a method of tapping into one's innate creativity. This book is unique in its approach to communal life, and yet is solidly anchored in literary sources from psychology to art. He evidences a deep understanding of human collaboration and creative exercise and applies these in practical exercises for being in creative community with others. I hope many individuals, communities and organizations will be enriched by exploring McNiff's approach to creation in the workplace.

McNiff has written a thoughful and practical work that not only shows direction for implementing creative thinking and being in life and the workplace, but also goes to the source of why art is so powerful a tool for change and healing. When learning occurs at its' quintessential best; when healing occurs at its' deepest level, one thing is certain - there is a connection being made between self, other and environment/community. McNiff has understood this connection and written in depth on this matter in many of his other writings. In this new volume, he takes this rich and novel understanding about connection and applies it into practical approaches for being in 'connection with others'! When one adds 'active imagination' to our daily encounters, it is here that the author boldly steps into an arena which brings a knowledge base of past and present experiences into focus and charts out new vision for 'life, art and the workplace.' This book dares to go where not many artists and scholors have dared to go before!