Influencing Creativity

I did a post some while ago asking where do you think best? It was stimulated by the realization that all my best ideas seem to come when I am either at the gym or under reasonably intense physical pressure. I have no idea why this should be the case but it is, and I am happy to go with it. It has the added bonus of getting me off my rear end especially when I need to do some writing, as I know an hour’s exercise will generate any number of ideas for posts and articles.

What I didn’t know at the time of that post was that a book had been written called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day by Michael Gelb and in it he discusses the same topic.

One of the most interesting facts to come out of endless academic research on the subject of where people think best was that almost nobody ever said that their best thinking came when they were either watching TV or at work!

Now the former I can understand, watching TV is an almost autonomic process these days with multiple advertisement breaks constantly serving to break any real concentration and flow that is usually needed to generate innovative ideas.

However, work was a bit of a surprise, the very place where we are supposed to be at our most creative and where we are getting paid, very often is the place we are likely to be unimaginative and come up against mental blocks.

Why is this I wonder? Or more to the point what can business owners and managers do to counter act it?

Unfortunately, many kids at school are lectured for staring out of windows lost in their own thoughts. Consequently most people don’t like to daydream at work for fear of looking like they are not pulling the weight and so that avenue of resourcefulness is blocked off.

I suppose business owners could ask their employees where they think best, that would be a novelty. Have you ever been asked that at work? I know I haven’t and I think if I had of been I would have been pleasantly surprised. At the very least being asked that question requires that the recipient to put some thought into it because lots of people have absolutely no idea of the environment that serves them most favorably.

Imagine if you are in an industry that ranks originality and creativity highly and you suddenly have the ability to recreate the times in people lives where they are at their most original and creative, wouldn’t that be a huge advantage?

I understand that it will not always be possible to do this, if for example somebody only gets inspired when in the shower it may be a bit tricky. On the other hand, if some others get great ideas when exercising maybe free gym membership would prove to be economically sound and you can kill two birds with one stone with a shower afterwards!

I am really just throwing random thoughts out here because I think it is an interesting topic for discussion. I appreciate that small companies have enough difficulty staying profitable never mind financing employees more esoteric thought-provoking escapades, but maybe for some of the larger ones there is the potential to make staff members happier whilst at the same time increasing revenue through new ground breaking products and ideas.

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