In a recent Wall Street Journal essay adapted from his new biography of Leonardo da Vinci, author Walter Isaacson explores the life and mind of the ultimate Renaissance Man. How did Leonardo’s ambitious visions become realities? What made him so imaginative and prescient that people still debate his art and craft ball bearings based on his original design? What can we learn from the habits of a creative genius?

It just so happens that Walter Isaacson’s body of work reads like a bibliography of creative geniuses; his books narrate the lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. Despite working across generations and geographies, these men shared a fundamental quality in common: They rejected “the distinctions we make today among different disciplines and fields.” Isaacson writes:

“Today we live in a world that encourages specialization, whether we are students, scholars, workers or professionals. We also tend to exalt training in technology and engineering, believing that the jobs of the future will go to those who can code and build rather than those who can be creative.”

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1504,Louvre, Paris, France [Public Domain] via WikiArt.org

This is exactly where Leonardo succeeded. “He simply wanted to know,” Isaacson writes. “He never outgrew the child’s need not just to admire the beauty of a blue sky but to ask why it is that color.” It’s this unrestrained curiosity and desire to learn that we harness and nurture with Books@Work. Why do engineers who manufacture ball bearings and communicate in mathematical language find value in the weekly in-depth discussion of fiction? Because the creative and collective exploration of a literary text triggers insights that illuminate and enrich their everyday work.

One engineer described her “nit-picky” and detail-oriented patterns of thought during the work day.  Books@Work “allows you to be creative and think about things in different ways,” she told us. “Your brain is a muscle [and we need to] exercise it.” There’s profound value in having “an outlet to be creative in a different way.”

It’s not just engineers who feel this way. An administrator at a large research university shared that Books@Work “removes you from [the work] environment and puts you into a place where you can focus on something so completely different.” After her weekly Books@Work session, she returned to the office with “a completely refreshed feeling. . . because you’ve gotten away from it. It helps me focus on my work. I was a better employee after that.”

The modern workplace is rigid by nature. Companies are organized by department, workers are categorized by role and offices are divided into floors and cubicles. If we learn anything from Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa and inventor of flying machines, it’s that innovation happens when we have the breathing room to break out of our constraints and try new things.

“When Einstein was stymied in his pursuit of the field equations for general relativity,” Isaacson writes, “he would often pull out his violin and play Mozart. The music, he said, helped to connect him to the harmonies of our cosmos.” Books@Work is not so different; but instead of grabbing a violin, participants sit down around a table, take out their books and explore.

Image: Leonardo da Vinci, L: A Plan of Imola, 1502, R: Design for a Giant Crossbow, 1482, [Public Domain] via WikiArt.org

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