Have you noticed how hard it can be to stay curious, creative, and innovative? I’ve noticed that in my own work and the leaders I work with certainly notice it in theirs. They often express concern about a perceived lack of curiosity, creativity, and innovation in their teams.
When those characteristics aren’t in play, stagnation results. You, your team, and your organization end up doing the same old, same old. And, like a wise person once said, when you do what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always gotten. Not a great prescription for success in a world and competitive environment that is seemingly changing at lightspeed. (Care for some Artificial Intelligence, anyone?)
So, what conditions do you need to create for yourself and your people to make room for the muse – that little voice or spark inside of you that fosters curiosity and the creativity and innovation that flow from it? Whether you’re a leader who wants to nurture a culture of curiosity or just want more of all of that it generates in your own life, here are three factors that I’ve concluded are important to pay attention to.
1. Pay attention to what’s in your ears and in front of your eyes – In a world of information overload, it’s all too easy to allow your brain space to become full of stuff that doesn’t matter or that you can’t do anything about. When that happens, a part of your brain called the amygdala starts working on overdrive and you end up in a chronic state of fight or flight. When that happens your pre-frontal cortex, the part of your brain that drives curiosity and creativity, gets overridden. Set your pre-frontal cortex free by looking at your calendar, emails, and texts to assess how many meetings and threads you’re a part of that don’t add any immediate value. Get out of or get rid of as many of those as you can. (If you’re a leader, make it easy for your team members to do the same.) While you’re at it, take a look at the media you’re consuming. Are your newsfeeds and podcasts making you tense and stressed out? If they are, change up your mix. Start reading things that fuel your creative juices or help you relax. Do the same with whatever you’re watching or listening to. Or maybe, do something crazy and leave the AirPods out of your ears while you’re working out or cleaning up and just let your mind wander.
2. Keep the main thing the main thing – Curiosity, creativity, and innovation suffer when you focus on the wrong goal. Two stories that illustrate that point – one from the corporate world and one from the arts. Take the once iconic American company, Boeing, for example. Historically known for helping land astronauts on the moon and creating the 747 jumbo jet, Boeing has lately struggled with getting astronauts back from the space station and panels blowing out of passenger planes midflight. A common answer for how that happened is that a generation of top executives shifted the company’s culture from one that focused on engineering and the curiosity that goes with it to one focused on financial performance and the “right answers” that go with that.
The arts example comes from the recently departed music industry icon Quincy Jones. Among the many accomplishments in his career, Jones was the producing partner for Michael Jackson’s three most successful albums, Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad. As reported in an appreciation in the Wall Street Journal,
“Throughout his own ever-morphing career, Jones maintained a fierce commitment to the art of music production. Asked in a 2018 interview if he still heard the spirit of jazz in pop music, he replied that he didn’t—that people were now focused on money instead. “I have never in my life made music for money or fame,” he told Vulture. “Not even ‘Thriller.’ No way. God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money.”
To put it another way, when you lose your focus on the main thing, your muse walks out of the room.
3. When you know, you know – You know that feeling you have when a good idea seems to appear out of nowhere? That’s your muse working for you. The thing is, though, your muse needs space to work. Over the years, I’ve asked thousands of leaders, “Where or when do you get your best ideas?” The number one answer is in the shower followed by working out, driving, and taking a walk. No one has ever said, “At my desk, in front of my computer.” It just doesn’t work that way. Your brain needs time for unconscious thought to work on the problems you haven’t solved yet and the opportunities you haven’t yet figured out how to leverage.
You likely already know what it feels like when your muse presents you with a good idea. You just need to make space for that to happen more often. How do you do that? Start with ideas 1 and 2 above. Developing good habits around being clear about your main thing and leaving space in your brain for your muse to do its thing will allow you to experience more of a feeling you already know – what it feels like to have a great idea that fuels your curiosity, creativity, and innovation.
And, if you’re a leader who wants to see more of that in your organization, ask yourself, “What am I doing that either enables or disables the collective muse?”
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