the Innovative Mind: Becoming Smarter by Thinking Less by Guy Claxton
Change is quickening and it is now common to question your tactical and strategic choices and routes. There is a clear need of a balance between innovation and implementation and there might be a need for some mindsets to change. So what are the mind sets that we currently have.
The implementation mind-set
There are some myths associated with this, or rather, some things that are thought to be important but what are slowly being proved as not to do. Here are some of them:
\- To be decisive you have to be certain
\- Time is always short
\- Slow starts to feel like stupid
\- Information is key to remove uncertainty (see above ;))
\- Always show you are working
Guy Claxton calls this the “Hare Brain” and the improved version of it he calls the “Tortoise Mind”.
Sometimes these ideas are misleading and make us focus too much, going the wrong direction as we didn’t take enough time. We get stuck in a groove. The pressure also makes the possibilities we have feel more restricted and rigid. To think outside the box, you need both time to relax and to simple tinker with ideas.
When you allow yourself time to think, and the possibilty to be unsure, you will end up with creative ideas sooner. Analytical thinking actually becomes problematic if you are in situations with so called insight problems.
With the old ideas of how we work, all relevant aspects of a situations need to be potentially written down. But a lot of things are hard to articulate and will elude analysis. These softer parts often are more valid than we think. Complex situations need an intuitive grasp and know how developes much faster than our ability to describe. Expertise precedes explanation!. Your feelings might be correct but your confidence will be low as long as you cannot explain them. Anthony Damasio did studies after which he concluded that intuition hold intelligent action and conscious understanding together.
Incubation is another thing that the innovative mind needs.
Implications of this are among others that we need to reevaluate our thinking about how people need to work, and need to reframe our idea of what data really is. Formal reports are often not work reading, but they really are worth writing to clarify your thinking. Also, managers need to respect their hunches and people need to allow their brain to wonder arround and then focus again, in its natural rythm. On top of that you need to create conditions that are conductive to creativity.