Is Thinking Choking Your Creativity?
As I write this, I am sitting in a Starbucks in London, England. Cars and taxis are zipping by on the street in front of me as I sip my espresso. Although I lived in London for several years, I only drove a car once while there…just once.
There is an exceptional transit system in London, so owning a vehicle isn’t necessary. Thankfully. If it were, I would have been significantly challenged. It’s funny…before moving to England, I had been driving effortlessly for 20 years. But one small difference made it nearly impossible for me to navigate here.
I am of course referring to the right-hand drive cars that are driven on the left-hand side of the road. I felt incapacitated while behind the wheel. I never knew which way to look. I had a hard time judging the edge of the car and kept hitting the rumble strips on the side of the road. And attempting to drive a manual stick-shift vehicle proved to be even more comical.
What I learned was that we quickly pick up habits. After driving for two decades, my skills were on automatic. Thinking was not necessary.
Unfortunately, moving the steering wheel and driving on the “other” side of the road forced me to think. Thinking caused me to choke.
It’s been shown that as athletes get closer to breaking a major record, their performance drops. They begin to “think,” when they otherwise would not. For example, as Barry Bonds approached his record breaking 762nd home run, his home runs per at bat dropped by as much as 90 percent. And what about Tiger Woods? Thinking of his personal situation seems to have thrown him off his game. Why?
When the “thinking” part of the brain—the cerebral cortex—is triggered, it literally chokes off the pathways to the pre-programmed skills that are stored in the cerebellum.
Studies show that 98 percent of 5-year-old children are highly creative, yet by the time they are the age of 25, only 2 percent are. Creativity is a pre-programmed skill. But education and the need to learn skills designed to pass standardized testing, chokes the creativity out of us. Instead of effortless fun and play, we are programmed to focus our thoughts on succeeding, winning or looking good, hampering our natural capabilities. But our innate creative abilities are still there. We just need to find better ways of tapping into them.
What does this have to do with business innovation?
Unfortunately the drive to perform in business is the very thing that inhibits creativity. Despite this truth, businesses will always be driven by metrics designed to monitor performance.
So, as an individual, what can you do to avoid choking your creative potential? The answer is simple: stop thinking.
Have you ever noticed that while taking a shower, you sometimes get creative thoughts? Have you ever had a brilliant insight while falling asleep or when waking up? The relaxing water and restful sleep quiets the judgmental part of the brain allowing your innate creative abilities to emerge. Take advantage of these moments. Keep a notebook by the side of the bed. Or in my case, a waterproof note pad in the shower. When lying in bed, Aristotle reputedly put a brass plate on his chest and held a metal ball above it in his hand. As he fell asleep, the ball would hit the plate waking him. He claimed to have his greatest insights just as he was dozing off.
Consider a company that is in the fragrance business and needs to develop 40 new scents every day. This is a daunting task. One manager I know decided to take his team out to Stonehenge to meditate before embarking on some brainstorming…
Read the rest of this article on the American Express OPEN Forum
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10 Years Ago Today
Ten years ago today was my last day with Accenture. The day before I had my book launch party for my first book, 24/7 Innovation. October 11, 2001.
I recently found a notebook from about 15 years ago. In it, I found an interesting entry from November 1996. In it, I declared where I wanted to be five years in the future.
At that time, Dr. Michael Hammer, the father of reengineering, was one of the most influential people in the world, and someone I admired.
My declaration was that I wanted to be the Michael Hammer of the next wave – giving speeches, writing books, and traveling the world. Five years later, almost to the day, my first book was published, I became a “professional speaker,” and I started traveling the world. The next wave happened to be “innovation.”
Below is part of what I wrote. It’s amazing to think that one day I had a vision for where I wanted to be and, voila, somehow it materialized.
Here’s hoping that all of your aspirations come true.
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Best Practices Are Stupid on ABC News…and more
My new book, Best Practices Are Stupid, has been all over the news lately. Here’s just a small sample…
Interview on ABC News (click video above)
Review on Fortune.com - “Why your company (probably) can’t innovate”
Best Practices Are Stupid on the USA Today reading list
Best Practices Are Stupid on the CIO Magazine reading list
Interview on CBS Interactive’s BNET (click video above)
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Customers Don’t Care How Your Business Is Structured
There is one principle that I wish companies would learn: customer’s don’t care how your business is structured; they just want it to be easy to work with you. Or as the late, great Dr. Michael Hammer would call it, ETDBW – Easy To Do Business With.
Sadly, so many companies have decided to make it increasingly difficult.
Back in 1997 I co-wrote an article for the Economist Intelligence Unit about the Virtualization of Financial Services. One of the biggest challenges we discussed was “channel integration” – the seamless integration of the web, branches, and ATM (cash) machines. Nearly 15 years later, companies have still not addressed this issue.
All these years later, we still see the same old problem.
Netflix recently announced that it is separating its DVD distribution service in a new business called Qwickster. Not only does the cost go up for consumers, but now you need separate accounts. I can’t imagine a company making it more difficult for customers to do business with them. Subscribers have been leaving in droves. OK, I realize that they are probably positioning their DVD business to be sold off. But in the process, they have significantly de-valued both businesses.
Yesterday I decided to pre-order an iPhone 4S from Verizon Wireless.
I went online, filled out all of the forms, and submitted my order successfully. Or so I thought. Ten minutes later I received an email saying that my order was cancelled and that I needed to call them if I had not requested the order to be cancelled. Given that I am in the UK, this was a bit of a hassle, but not a big deal. I called 3 times and only got voicemail. Admittedly, given the timezone difference, it was quite early there.
I fished around their website and found a place where I could send a message via email. I wrote telling them I did not want my order cancelled.
Not knowing if I would get a response to my email, I continued calling. After about a half dozen tries, I got through to someone who was very helpful. She couldn’t find a reason why my order was cancelled so she put me on hold and called the internet order group. She was told that the order could not be reinstated and that I needed to place a new order. Therefore, the nice woman transferred me to phone sales. I asked the sales agent if they could pull up the order I made previously and just re-enter the information instead of giving it all again over the phone. I was told that it was not possible since all internet orders are handled by a different group.
In the end, I decided it would be easier to place another order via the internet, which I did. I received my order confirmation and did not get a cancellation notice this time. I left my computer feeling like everything had been handled.
A few hours later, I received an email back from customer service in response to the email I sent much several hours earlier. They said, “This order was canceled out of the system because your order was placed from a foreign IP address and our system auto cancels any orders that don’t come from a domestic IP address. Since you were able to call in and speak with our customer protection team, they were able to approve you for service.”
Hmmm, this is a different answer than the one I received when I was on the phone!
The email continued…
“Our records indicate that you placed another order which is currently waiting to be processed by the expected ship date of 10-14-2011. When it’s time to process the payment and ship the equipment, you will be notified via email if there are any issues with the order. If the order completed with no problems, you’ll receive an email with your FedEx tracking information.”
One person tells me the first order was cancelled. But another tells me it will ship. And I also learn that my second order is still being processed which means it may or may not be approved. Basically I don’t know if on October 14th I will receive one iPhone, two iPhones, or maybe none at all.
Clearly, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.
I wish companies would learn that customers do not care how they are structured. Customers do not think about internet versus phone orders, they just think in terms of orders.
What can you do to make your company ETDBW?
UPDATE: Since writing this blog entry, Netflix killed Qwickster recognizing it was a bad idea. And I also heard back from Verizon Wireless. It appears that my first order was indeed cancelled and not re-initiated, and only the second order is active. Let’s see what actually ships.
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