“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries,” A.A. Milne, of Winnie-the-Pooh fame, once noted. 

Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, helps us appreciate how tricky it will be to apply more discipline to imagination. 

As for the more expansive process of generating conceptual breakthroughs, Lehrer shares proof from research using EEG monitors that it comes down to alpha waves emanating from the right hemisphere, which allow connections to be made between formerly remote realms of thought.  As in the old ad where peanut butter collides with chocolate, great innovation comes from combinations no one quite intended. In fact, only a mind that lacks intention, that has lapsed into an unfocused state, generates those alpha waves.

… the problem with the productive form of daydreaming Lehrer describes is that to the outside observer (and often to the daydreamer, too), it is indistinguishable from the unproductive kind.

as managers we also need to think outside our own box. As creativity becomes more central to performance, we shouldn’t reflexively reach for our accustomed tool kit of efficient levers and objective metrics. We need to come to terms with a core competence that defies discipline, a competitive edge that depends deeply on being disorderly.

We associate insights with deep concentration and contemplation. But surprising new research is demonstrating another side to the story. This is what Fry’s story tells us, that breakthroughs occur when we are relaxed, when the mind is not focused but at ease. An insight obviously requires a lot hard work; it is often the peak of years of work. But on the way to discovery it’s important to let the mind wonder.

One New Yorker article explains that, “the insight process… is a delicate mental balancing act. At first, the brain lavishes the scarce resource of attention on a single problem. But, once the brain is sufficiently focused, the cortex needs to relax in order to seek out the more remote association in the right hemisphere, which will provide the insight.”

In a recent article on Time.com the science writer Annie Murphy Paul described the study by Wieth and Zacks and reminded readers that, “by not giving yourself time to tune in to your meandering mind, you’re missing out on the surprising solutions it may offer.” 

empirical results from the science of insights are confirming, not discovering, what many have known for centuries. The Austrian born physicist Fritjof Capra has a wonderful quote that captures this point. In his book The Tao Of Physics he explains the following:

Rational knowledge and rational activities certainly constitute the major part of scientific research, but are not all there is to it.  The rational part of research would, in fact, be useless if it were not complemented by the intuition that gives scientists new insights and makes them creative.   These insights tend to come suddenly and, characteristically, not when sitting at a desk working out the equations, but when relaxing, in the bath, during a walk in the woods, on the beach, etc.  During these periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight to scientific research.

a penchant for novelty also predicts well-being?  C. Robert Cloninger, professor of psychiatry at Washington University at St. Louis tracked a cohort of people based on their responses to a personality test called the Temperament and Character Inventory for more than a decade.  Three traits: novelty-seeking, tenacity, and “self-transcendence” * were most highly correlated with having the best health, most friends, and greatest life satisfaction. 

And guess what?  These are the classic characteristics of the creative personality.  Add to this: curiosity and flexibility in thinking and you have the traits that for half a century have been identified by creativity researchers as the key ingredients found among people who make the greatest contributions to societal transformation. 

Well-designed creativity-training programs improve scores on standardized creativity tests.  Two sizeable meta-analyses have recently summarized dozens of evaluations of these programs: 40 studies were assessed by Clapham and colleagues (2003) and 70 studies by Scott, Leritz, and Mumford (2004).  Among college students, business professionals, and engineers, formal creativity training increased scores on tests of creative thinking.  In particular, trained individuals thought more flexibly, fluently, and with greater novelty.  Creativity training programs impressively improved such skills independent of age, gender, and IQ.  On the job, training translated into improvements in attitudes, problem solving, and performance.  In short, the benefits of training were broad and comprehensive.

The essence is to overcome the habitual frames that allow you to see the world in only one monochromatic way.   To overcome frames, the steps can be summarized by way of the attractive acronym PIG In MUD:  

• Phrase a question based on interest, observation and knowledge
• Identify your usual frames and find alternatives
• Generate all possible solutions
• Incubate
• Meld your single best idea back into usual work processes

The capacity to develop original or novel ideas or to produce novel, beautiful, and useful artifacts is perhaps the most important cognitive trait that human beings possess. However, it has rarely been studied scientifically.

This work indicates that the creative process depends heavily on intuition and flashes of insight rather than analytic processes. It also indicates that being highly creative is not equivalent to having a high IQ; the average IQ in creative people is around 120. People with “high IQs” (e.g, 140 range) are not necessarily creative. (Andreasen 2005, 1987).

A historical survey in my recent book, “The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius,” suggests that the creative process is similar in both artists and scientists, that it is highly intuitive, and that it may arise from unconscious or dreamlike mental states during which new links are created in the association cortices of the brain. (Andreasen 2005, Andreasen et al 1995)

As for the best way to educate a gifted writer, that’s easy – it’s 20% writing, and 80% learning about the rest of the world. Without a solid base of knowledge your writing might still end up sounding pretty, but it won’t necessarily be good. There are lots of writers with great prose who, in the end, have nothing to say.

I don’t think it’s an accident that Nobel Prize winning scientists are far more likely to be involved in the arts than the body of scientists at large. Fundamentally, I think that at some level all knowledge is interrelated, and having knowledge of different subjects – even if you’re primarily obsessed with and an expert at only one – will help you make breakthroughs that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Imagination is a key aspect of creativity, but imagination is useless without a body of knowledge to build from.

The bigger question is, how do we build a culture that values intellectual and artistic activity at a higher level, and where people are invited and expected to challenge and improve their own capabilities? In short, how do we make everyone WANT to be Einstein? That, I think, is the more interesting question.

Research suggests you’d be more creative if I didn’t allow your mind to roam free.

Creativity involves variability— different ways of doing things. But creativity also involves constraints, which can either promote or preclude creativity. This simple, yet extremely important and non-obvious insight is the basis of Patricia Stokes’s excellent book “Creativity from Constraints: The Psychology of Breakthrough“. Through an impressive array of examples, she makes it clear that constraints play a role in many different creative domains, and in many of the most revolutionary creative products of our time.

In many domains, there are issues that have not yet been resolved, questions that have not yet been posed, and problems that have no obvious solution. These “ill-structured” problems require a creative approach. Paradoxically, when people are given free reign to solve a problem, they tend to be wholly uncreative, focusing on what’s worked best in the past. This is due to the fundamental nature of human cognition: to imagine the future we generate what we already know from the past. According to Stokes, such freedom can hinder creativity, whereas the strategic use of constraints can promote creativity. By using constraints, reliable responses are precluded and novel surprising ones are encouraged.

What are these constraints? Some constraints promote creativity, whereas others promote conformity. Responses that are applied in an almost algorithmic fashion (e.g., rote memorization of ideas in school, copying correctly, etc.) promote conformity. Constraints that preclude low-variability, tried-and-true responses, while at the same time promoting high variability, novel responses lead to creative breakthroughs.

Stokes lists four such constraints.

The first set of constraints are domain constraints. Stokes refers to these kind of constraints as “First Choruses”. Individuals in any field will have a difficult time being creative unless they first become an expert in the field. This requires learning all of the agreed-upon performance criteria of the field.  These criteria are based on what Stokes refers to as goal, subject, and task constraints. Goal constraints specify a particular style, subject constraints involve content, and task constraints refer to the particular materials that are used in a domain. Put simply: domain constraints provide the structure, the foundation if you will, upon which experts can then produce variations. According to Stokes, the transition from master to creator comes when the expert imposes novel constraints on their domains.

The second set of constraints Stokes refers to are cognitive constraints. These reflect the limitations of the human mind. Many creative works are overlooked simply because they are not understood.

The third set of constraints Stokes points to are variability constraints. These specify how differently something must or should be done.

The fourth set of constraints Stokes mentions are talent constraints.

The best data visualizations are ones that expose something new about the underlying patterns and relationships contained within the data. Understanding those relationships — and being able to observe them — is key to good decision making. The Periodic Table is a classic testament to the potential of visualization to reveal hidden relationships in even small datasets. One look at the table, and chemists and middle school students alike grasp the way atoms arrange themselves in groups: alkali metals, noble gasses, halogens.

“Novelty-seeking is one of the traits that keeps you healthy and happy and fosters personality growth as you age,” says C. Robert Cloninger, the psychiatrist who developed personality tests for measuring this trait.

… if you combine this adventurousness and curiosity with persistence and a sense that it’s not all about you, then you get the kind of creativity that benefits society as a whole.

What was the secret to their happy temperament and character? A trio of traits. They scored high in novelty-seeking as well in persistence and “self-transcendence.” Persistence, the stick-to-it virtue promoted by strong-willed Victorians, may sound like the opposite of novelty-seeking, but the two traits can coexist and balance each other.

“People with persistence tend to be achievers because they’ll keep working at something even when there’s no immediate reward,” Dr. Cloninger says. “They’ll think, ‘I didn’t win this time, but next time I will.’ But what if conditions have changed? Then you’re better off trying something new. To succeed, you want to be able to regulate your impulses while also having the imagination to see what the future would be like if you tried something new.”

The other trait in the trio, self-transcendence, gives people a larger perspective. “It’s the capacity to get lost in the moment doing what you love to do, to feel a connection to nature and humanity and the universe,” Dr. Cloninger says. “It’s sometimes found in disorganized people who are immature and do a lot of wishful thinking and daydreaming, but when it’s combined with persistence and novelty-seeking, it leads to personal growth and enables you to balance your needs with those of the people around you.”

If we think others in a group are smarter, we may become dumber, temporarily losing both our problem-solving ability and what the researchers call our “expression of IQ.”

Two primary factors influence how we behave in a group: personality and position, says Michael Woodward, an organizational psychologist in New York and author of “The You Plan: A Five-Step Guide to Taking Charge of Your Career in the New Economy.”

If you are quiet in a group setting, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are shy, but it does mean you might be an introvert.

Introverts prefer to collect their thoughts before speaking and can be overwhelmed in a group, especially of extraverts, who tend to “think out loud” and process information by speaking.

Help For the Tongue-Tied

Do you often find it difficult to speak up in a small group? Here are some ways to cope:

•Pair up with a peacock. Join with someone who is more outgoing than you, or has a higher position within the group. In a social situation, this person can introduce you and keep talk flowing, or bring up your points in a business meeting and then toss you an opening into the conversation. ‘You find an avenue where you are being pulled in,’ says Michael Woodward, a New York organizational psychologist.

•Talk to the person running the meeting beforehand. Mention the points you want to discuss and ask for an opportunity to bring them up. Explain why you are asking.

•Prepare. In a business meeting, know what you want to say, practice your delivery and bring notes. This will help prevent you from being distracted by what others are saying and wondering how you should respond. ‘Any good politician knows his talking points,’ Dr. Woodward says.

•Take a break. If you are in a situation that is making you anxious or draining your mental energy, get some water or take a walk. Think of this as resetting your brain, just as you’d turn your computer off to reset it if it were frozen.

•Realize others in the room likely feel the same way. And remember: The people who froze the most in the Virginia Tech study were actually the smartest.

a plethora of psychological data suggests that most of us balk when we are given the chance to connect with people who might not share similar intellects.

Consider a study (pdf) done back in 2007 by Paul Ingram and Michael Morris at Columbia University. The psychologists gathered a group of executives and had them attend a cocktail mixer where the psychologists encouraged the executives to exchange ideas, network and meet new people.

Like good behavioral scientists, Ingram and Morris weaseled microphones on all the nametags to record what was said. Prior to the “mixing” the executives stated that they wanted to “meet as many different people as possible” or “expand their social network,” but Ingram and Morris found just the opposite. “Do people mix at mixers?“ they asked in the concluding remarks of their study. “The answer is no… our results show that guests at a mixer tend to spend the time talking to the few other guests whom they already know well.”

when it comes to solving difficult problems, a fresh set of eyes, even one that comes from a different field, is vital.