In an environment of sudden economic scarcity and even fear, how can we generate new and innovative ideas in our lives and our businesses? In this month’s edition (October, 2008) of Fast Company magazine, Gregory Berns, writes a column about rewiring the creative mind. It is based on the theories in his new book, Iconoclast. No business or organization thrive long-term without someone who challenges tradition and envisions an impossibly different future. He says we should think of people like Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, and Florence Nightingale among many other fascinating innovators who accomplished things others said couldn’t be done. Berns new theory about initiating creativity and imagination is based on breakthroughs in neuroscience.
This new research has discovered that our brains are LAZY! “Our brain is a lazy piece of meat. It doesn’t want to waste energy,” according to Berns. If you are asked to imagine a beach scene, the brain takes the path of least resistance and processes a stereotypical scene – sand, blue sky, umbrella, sea gulls, etc. On the other hand, if you are asked to imagine a sunset on Pluto, suddenly the brain can conjure up all sorts of possibilities and creative thinking expands.
That is why corporate retreats typically aren’t effective idea generators:
- The same leaders often show up which limits new perspective
- They are scheduled ahead so the brain has time to project the future
- They take place in familiar conference rooms (even in exotic places) where the environment doesn’t lead us to surprises and new experiences.
For us to fully engage our lazy brains, we must interact with new people, new environments and new (even surprise) experiences. Need some creative and innovative ideas? Iconoclast shows us what makes great innovators tick and gives us tools to unleash our own potential. |
