Mix Creativity With the Right Mindset to Serve Up Innovation

A study of writer’s block may explain why some people find it hard to build on initial creative successes.

Dirk Deichmann and Markus Baer

May 01, 2023

First-time inventors, film directors, and novelists often have a hard time replicating their early success. In our recent study about creativity in the United Kingdom, we found that first-time cookbook writers suffered a similar challenge, and for similar reasons.¹

While cookbooks and management may have little in common, understanding who publishes a second cookbook and who doesn’t does shed some light on what it takes to sustain creativity, in the kitchen or out. Of the first-time cookbook authors we studied, 50% published a second ...