Book review: What Made You Think of That? Thinking Differently in Business
 Book author: Gary Bertwistle
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Gary Bertwistle is an Australian author, motivational speaker and business consultant. In those roles, his main thesis concerns ways of unlocking untapped potential and creativity.
To that end, he has published two previous books: The Keys to Creativity (2007) and Who Stole My Mojo? (2008; read our review).
Bertwistle’s inspiration comes from peers in the field who articulate an interest in the pragmatic over the theoretical, the bite-sized over the substantial. This is clearly explicated in his new book.
In What Made You Think of That?, Bertwistle invites the reader to explore ways of thinking differently in business.
Rightly, he commences with an exploration of creativity. I was disappointed, though, at the lack of working definition of creativity – to say that creativity cannot be defined is simply an intellectual cop-out. All that Bertwistle can really bring to the table are a series of barriers to creativity.
And this is where the entire first half of the books resides. The suggestions that Bertwistle makes – which include making time to be creative, clearing your desk, thinking positively, carrying a notebook and sitting and contemplating – are at once painfully obvious and mostly glib.
It’s only in the second last chapter that Bertwistle plays his strongest, and most substantial, hand. Here he summarises a handful of structured, systematic tools to foster creative thinking in workplaces. Better than truncating them here, these tools are summarised on the author’s website.
Correctly, Bertwistle argues that the application of creativity ought to be simple. All behaviour research tells us that people learn new skills (even skills of creativity) through simple, memorable, applicable lessons.
However, there is no disjunction between the simplicity of the application of creativity and the complexities of the research behind it. Indeed, only through distilling very complex research can we reach highly refined, simple take-away lessons. Bertwistle seems to have at best confused – at worst lost – this particularly important point.
If it’s forgivable for an author to shy away from theoretical rigour, then it’s certainly not so when it comes to avoiding empirical validation. Put simply (for those who like to remain confused by theory), Bertwistle fails to present any meaningful evidence that his tools actually work.
In this regard, Bertwistle is at best a light-weight contender in contrast to some of his contemporaries such as Robert Sternberg and Howard Gardner (see our review of Five Minds for the Future).
The lack of working definition of creativity left me with a feeling that something deeply central was missing from the book.
In all, the tools that Bertwistle does present do seem – on the face of them – to have a strong degree of methodological discipline. They are elegant, simple and comprehensive. But without the academic or theoretical rigour to back them up, they are as weighty as balloons.
What Made You Think of That? will appeal to readers interested in commencing their personal investigation of their creative process. If it only catalyses them to think differently about how they explore thinking differently, them it will have served a purpose. Asking much more of that may prove unreasonable.
Our rating: 6/10
By Ben Zipper, Co-editor, Women & Leadership Australia eNewsletter
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