Productivity Is The Enemy of Creativity

Does your company struggle with finding unique (dare I say creative) solutions to new problems? Does it feel like all the “new” ideas are just variations the same old thing? Even if you think you’re doing a pretty good job, do you think you could be doing better? I doubt there’s a CEO in the World who thinks their company has enough creativity and innovation.

The problem is that our brains are very efficient – in their own way. It might be more accurate to say they’re lazy. Our brains recognize patterns and are good at recreating those patterns. This is great for productivity, but bad for creativity. We do the same things, in the same way, so that we don’t have to think about every little thing we do. If we didn’t do this we’d never make it out the door in the morning. Your brain is so good at this it even creates patterns and routines for things you don’t want it to, like creative problem solving.

[Words of Warning: this is not a post bashing processes or structure. Creativity requires removing boundaries and barriers, but when it comes time to make those ideas a reality you need processes and structure.]

Too Much Beige

Everyday you go to the same place to work, in the same environment. You see the same people and you are surrounded by the same sensory inputs (beige). And you usually have to solve the same, or similar, problem over and over again. Your company makes most of its money selling the latest version, of the same product, to the same set of customers. Yet when those same things don’t bring in the same results, you’re expected to come up with new ideas. How are you supposed to come up with new “creative” ideas when you see the same people, in the same buildings, after driving the same route to work, sitting at the same desk, or in the same generic conference rooms? Our brains don’t work that way.

Break Stuff

So how do you fix it? Break your patterns. It’s that easy, and anyone can do it (some easier than others). The simplest way to do this is to change the environment. Go to a different location. Team off-sites started for a reason. But lately the term “off site” usually just means “stuck in a conference room at work all day.”

But you don’t have to spend a lot of money on a corporate boondoggle to break patterns. Start your meeting in a conference room, then break your team into groups and send them to coffee shops, or outside. This only works if they can talk about things that aren’t confidential. If your company uses any agencies, or other business partners, ask them if they have meeting rooms you can rent for the day (they’ll usually let you use their rooms for free to make you happy, but offer to pay anyway).

Even more important is to change the way you think about the problem. Instead of asking people to come up with new ideas, ask them what they would do if they were your competition? What would you do if your product were free and add supported, or if your product cost 10x more? What if you had to sell enterprise solutions to children, or teenagers? Or imagine you have to sell children’s toys to corporations, or the military. Have people make collages from magazines, draw stick figure pictures, whatever. It doesn’t matter if the scenarios are stupid, the stupider the better. You’re breaking patterns, priming the creative pumps.

Make sure you have everyone right down their ideas, preferably on sticky notes, and put them on the wall before talking about them. This helps avoid group think. Then take those crazy ideas and talk about how you would apply those same tactics to your current problem.

This type of brainstorming is often called ideation. Over the years I’ve developed my own tactics that work for myself and with groups by pulling in lots of different ideas, but IDEO is probably the most famous for pioneering the design thinking approach. I’ve found that it’s the best way to systematically break down a problem, and disrupt your pattern of thinking in order to come up with new solutions.

What About Me?

If you want to know how to be more creative yourself, then constantly find ways to disrupt your patterned thinking. Breaking pattern thinking is great to do on a regular basis (like going to the gym regularly instead of twice a year), but it’s also a great way to get unstuck on a problem you can’t work out. Here’s a list of things that work for me:

• Go work from a new place. Go to a coffee shop or a co-work space.
• Take a break, download a new game on your phone and play it.
• Draw something. Redraw it with your non-dominant hand.
• Write a poem (you don’t have to show it to anyone).
• Read (or listen to) a book about an industry you know nothing about (I’ve found books about art, architecture, linguistics, and material science helpful).
• Play with LEGO’s (my go-to tactic).

This isn’t an exhaustive list, and different things work for different people. Do you have any tips for thinking more creatively? Feel free to share them here.

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Originally published at tacanderson.com.