Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All

Tom Kelley, the younger brother of David Kelley, is a prominent voice in innovation, entrepreneurship, and creative culture. As a partner at IDEO and the author of The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom brings a business-savvy lens to the creativity conversation. His professional background includes an MBA and experience in management consulting, which gives him credibility with corporate audiences and grounds his insights in real-world applications. His career trajectory—from conventional business paths to the world of design—mirrors the journey that the book invites readers to take: a move from rigidity to creative fluency.

In Creative Confidence, Tom’s contributions help balance the book’s tone, making it accessible to a wide audience. His storytelling skills are evident throughout the text, bringing warmth, humor, and relatability to what could otherwise be abstract theory. While David often speaks as a designer and educator, Tom translates those ideas into lessons that resonate in boardrooms, classrooms, and personal lives. He emphasizes the universal applicability of creative thinking—not just for artists or designers but for managers, parents, students, and engineers.

Tom’s role in the book extends beyond co-authorship; he acts as a cultural interpreter, making the language of creativity fluent to readers who may not see themselves as “naturally” creative. His own transformation—from spreadsheets to storyboards—helps validate the book’s message that creative confidence can be learned, nurtured, and shared. Together, Tom and David present a unified front, combining visionary insight with pragmatic encouragement.

Tom also plays a pivotal role in legitimizing creativity in traditionally skeptical environments, such as corporate boardrooms or STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-focused institutions. His knack for translating design principles into actionable business insights is one reason why Creative Confidence has resonated with such a broad audience. Through stories drawn from IDEO and beyond, Tom advocates for embedding creativity into everyday work—whether through prototyping, team rituals, or simple reframing of problems. His belief that anyone can become more creative, regardless of job title or background, supports one of the book’s key messages: Creative confidence is not a niche skill but a universal one. Tom’s influence ensures that this message reaches leaders, educators, and changemakers who might otherwise dismiss “creativity” as irrelevant to their domains.

IDEO is the globally influential design and innovation consultancy co-founded by David Kelley. Established in the early 1990s through the merger of several design firms, IDEO has become synonymous with human-centered design and groundbreaking innovation. The company has worked with organizations ranging from Apple and GE to governmental bodies and nonprofits. IDEO’s multidisciplinary teams integrate engineering, behavioral science, and aesthetics to develop novel products, services, and experiences—often by starting from empathy and user insight.

In Creative Confidence, IDEO functions as both a proving ground and a case study for the ideas presented in the book. It’s the place where the Kelley brothers tested and refined their creative tools and strategies. Numerous anecdotes in the book—such as redesigning the shopping cart or improving medical devices—are drawn from IDEO’s portfolio, showing how the tools of innovation can be applied across industries.

Beyond its client work, IDEO also exemplifies a distinct organizational culture that values experimentation, rapid prototyping, and feedback. Its environment encourages psychological safety and celebrates failure as a learning tool—concepts that are central to the book’s thesis. For readers, IDEO becomes a model of what a creatively confident workplace might look like: a place where people of diverse backgrounds collaborate, take risks, and produce meaningful, human-centered change. The firm’s inclusion in the text adds credibility and illustrates how creative confidence scales from the individual to the organizational level.

IDEO’s impact in Creative Confidence is not limited to high-profile success stories; it also lies in the way the firm has codified and scaled creative practices. The company’s emphasis on field research, storytelling, and iterative prototyping makes innovation feel tangible and achievable, even in complex systems. IDEO’s model encourages diverse teams to collaborate in low-risk environments, allowing bold ideas to surface and evolve. The Kelley brothers use IDEO to demonstrate how an organizational culture can be intentionally designed to support risk-taking and resilience. As a symbol, IDEO helps anchor the book’s ideas in real-world application—it shows readers what it looks like when an entire company internalizes and lives by the principles of creative confidence.