Under what circumstances do creative ideas happen?
Here I will touch upon Herbert Benson’ work on the relaxation response and some more research from Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi’s earlier work on the psychology of happiness had coined the word “flow” (others refer to this as “being in the zone”) a state of relaxed focus attention when humans can achieve extraordinary results with minimal effort. In his recent research on creativity Csikszentmihalyi links the conditions for flow to the conditions for creativity.Some of the conditions for “flow” to occur are in the table below:
CONDITIONS for FLOW
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(1) Clarity of Purpose
(2) Rapid Feedback
(3) Balance between Challenge and Skill
(4) Distractions are excluded
(5) No worry of failure
(6) Ego is not present
(7) Autotelic (the task is an end in itself)
Some features of the flow state::
- Action and Awareness merge into one
- Time is distorted
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Let’s look at these features from the traditional management/business perspectiveIn the Compliant Company many things are happening to prevent this human condition of “flow”.
- Arbitrary targets destroy (1).
- Annual appraisal is the antithesis of (2).
- Setting challenges to achieve targets without a method for achievement upsets (3).
- Supervision, having your “activity” measured + arbitrary targets are major distractions for (4).
- A Blame culture sabotages (5)
- A reward culture sabotages (6)
- Extrinsic rewards sabotage (7)
The key requirement for attaining a creative or ‘peak’ experienceHerbert Benson has given some great insight here.Hiss early research was on the “relaxation response” and he was the first western doctor/scientist to study the abilities of eastern yogis. His recent work has been on what he calls the “breakout principle” – what happens when people get their “ah-ha” moments and make a breakthrough in their thinking. What he has shown is that in most cases of creative solutions to complex problems there is first a period of intense mental struggle with a task. (Activity and task merge, much like Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow”). Then there is a period of “release”, of deep relaxation, and this release leads to the breakout point or the “peak experience”. (Benson has demonstrated that under these conditions the brain produces “puffs” of nitric oxide. Zohar has shown this is associated with the production of “coherent” brainwaves which correlate with these breakthrough moments) So this helps to explain why we get our most creative moments when walking, or in the shower, or having a massage etc. Intense activity followed by deep relaxation is a necessary requirement for ‘breakthrough’ moments. How does your company operate to ensure there are opportunities for lots of creative moments in the workplace?
