Skip to Content
Unlock Creativity Through Analogical Thinking
article

Unlock Creativity Through Analogical Thinking

by Richard L. Gruner
November 2025
Beginner
6 pages
16m
English
MIT Sloan Management Review

Overview

Creativity is essential for business success, yet many leaders struggle to generate fresh ideas. Analogical thinking offers an accessible solution: spotting structural similarities between unrelated concepts and applying insights from one domain to another. Well-constructed analogies fuel innovation. Leaders can cultivate this skill through four practices: consuming knowledge from distant fields, being playful, creating safe spaces for speculation, and rigorously evaluating insights.

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

What Successful Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Get Right

What Successful Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Get Right

Rob Angell
What Successful Project Managers Do

What Successful Project Managers Do

W. Scott Cameron, Jeffrey S. Russell, Edward J. Hoffman, Alexander Laufer
Coaching for High Performance

Coaching for High Performance

MIT Sloan Management Review

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 53863MIT67227