Do you consider yourself to be a human being? Think again — are you sure? Now let me rephrase my question: Are you a human BE-ing or rather a human DO-ing? In our hectic times, most business people are doing-doing-doing something all the time. If you are a manager, every slot in your busy schedule is filled up with many short-time activities and interruptions: meetings, phone calls, client luncheons, networking events, and countless small to-do items. And of course, there are over 50 e-mails in your inbox waiting for your review and — in some cases — your urgent response. Thanks to Research In Motion, some employees and managers now even rush into their lunch breaks with their BlackBerries, having become already well conditioned to stop their conversation (and their chewing) as soon as a new e-mail comes in. Sounds familiar?

Now, I have another question for you: Where are you and what are you doing when you get your best ideas? Please stop reading here and now, close your eyes for a brief moment and reflect on my question before you continue reading this article.

So what is your answer? If you’re like the vast majority of people, then you don’t get your best ideas when you are in the office. Am I right? Without knowing your answer in detail, I am sure that you’ll find that you’ll have some of the typical responses to this question that I’ve heard over the last few years in my workshops and university courses on Business Creativity. Most people get their best ideas when they are doing some of the following things: Resting in bed, taking a shower, having a bath, driving in their car, playing sports such as running, swimming, cycling, or exercising in the gym, reading an interesting book, having a meal, listening to music, relaxing on the sofa at home, playing golf, taking a break in a coffee shop (Starbucks positioned itself as the “third place” apart from home and the office where you can be yourself), sunbathing on the beach, hanging out with friends, hiking in nature, playing with their children, and I could continue further. You’ve got my intended message: People get their best ideas when they’re doing things that are fun and not when they’re slaving away in the office.

Many Asian companies have company cultures that require rigid adherence to fixed office hours and that also glorify those serious, hard-working employees who put in the longest hours. However, the number of hours spent in the office does not necessarily equate with work productivity. Furthermore, spending too much time in the office seems to be a counterproductive strategy for producing novel ideas and creative responses to the multifold business challenges caused by fast-changing market environments.

Creativity requires time. Research studies indicate that creativity is unlikely to occur in a company where overcrowded work schedules make employees feel they are on a treadmill. In a famous study on the connection between creativity and time pressure, Harvard professor Teresa M. Amabile discovered some stunning results: The more time-pressured people feel on a given day, the less likely they are to think creatively. This result holds true not only on that day, but also on the two following days (a phenomenon that she called “time pressure hangover” comparable to the hangover after a night out). Moreover, the experts who judged the creative output of the group under severe time pressure and of the control group with sufficient time noticed that the drop in creativity was worst when time pressure was highest. Furthermore, the time-pressured participants were under the impression that their unoriginal outputs were highly creative contributions. In other words: The participants under time pressure in the study were not able to objectively judge the creative quality of their work, which in business may lead to a selection of unoriginal business ideas for real-life implementation. It is worthwhile to remember Leonardo da Vinci, who developed the following work philosophy while working on his art paintings: “It is well that you should often leave off work and take a little relaxation because when you come back to it you are a better judge.”

What are the implications of these research findings and of the insights gained from our opening questions for companies that want to promote corporate creativity and produce innovation results? Here are three tips for your consideration:

1. When reviewing staffing of your team, make sure that the headcount is not too tight. Plan to avoid the “work like being on the treadmill” trap when the daily schedules of your people are completely filled up with routine work or crisis management. Give your employees some space and time for coming up with creative results. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a leading researcher on creative genius and individual creativity, expressed the time dilemma as follows: “The important thing to remember is that creative energy, like any other form of psychic energy, only works over time. It takes a certain minimum amount of time to write a sonnet or to invent a new machine. People vary in the speed they work — Mozart wrote concerti much faster than Beethoven did — but even Mozart could not escape the tyranny of time. Therefore, every hour saved from drudgery and routine is an hour added to creativity.”

2. Remember that productivity is fueled by results and not by the number of hours spent behind a computer screen in the office. Call a meeting of your team and find out when and where they get their best ideas using the beginning question above. Then encourage your employees to spend some time each day on their individual “fun activities” that spur their creativity. Finally, make a credible statement that you will assess the performance of an employee based on the ends and not on the means. I count the hour for my daily run as work time as I get lots of great ideas while running.

3. As a leader, don’t forget to practice what you preach. “Learn to pause — or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you,” recommends the poet Doug King. Make sure to find some time every day to “indulge yourself” in your favorite idea booster activities — and soon you will notice that you generate more and more meaningful ideas for your business and that your vision of the future gets sharper.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2007. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 7 July 2007.