Everyone’s An Artist (or At Least They Should Be)
How Creativity Gives You the Edge in Everything You Do
Ron Tite, Scott Kavanagh, Christopher Novais
“Can a Canali-clad million-dollar banker learn anything from a paint-stained artist? Definitely. Especially now. Clearly, succeeding in business is an art form. We’ve informally labelled activities and pursuits as “the art of management,” “the art of marketing” or even “the art of doing more with less,” but we’ve rarely made the direct connection between the two worlds. With a rapidly changing digital economy, new and emerging technologies, increased clutter and a drastically altered media landscape, successful companies are those that are original, creative and innovative. Defining business as art is now a credible school of thought, and the lessons are far more practical than philosophical. Everyone’s an Artist shows how and why the most successful executives and entrepreneurs think like artists.”
The core message of this book is clear: being in business requires creativity, whether you’re an executive or an entrepreneur. It’s an interesting concept, but the execution leaves something to be desired.
The author has a fun, light-hearted writing style with plenty of humor, which I appreciated—it gave the book a relatable, human touch. However the book felt overly long and could have conveyed its key points more efficiently. The narrative often drifted into lengthy discussions about artists and their work. While there’s a connection between art and creativity in business, the references and stories were about artists. From comedians, painters, writers etc. Instead of focusing on artists, it would have been more relevant to highlight creative business leaders, of which there were only a handful, and those mentioned were the usual suspects like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.
Each chapter seemed to blend into the next without distinct takeaways. The overall message was there to be an artist, I guess just in fluffy art format! While I recommend the core idea of the book, I’m not convinced it’s worth the full read. 3 stars.
