Criticism, Downtime and the Creative Brain
Digital Content
Brainstorm. I’ve experienced a few that have flashed through my mind, flooding my frontal lobes with inspiration. These down-bursting mental squalls are isolated storms—personal cloudbursts of creativity. William Duggan, Professor of Management at Columbia Business School, calls this type of insight strategic intuition, “shining thoughts that cut through the fog of your mind” in an instant.
Strategic intuition happens in a moment, but it could take weeks for that moment to occur. Often, after laboring over a problem, the best solution comes to me when I least expect it—in the shower, walking down the street, waiting for the train, or falling asleep. There’s a reason for this, according to Jonah Lehrer.
In an article written for The New Yorker headlined, “Groupthink: The Brainstorming Myth,” Lehrer states that brainstorming in groups “seems like an ideal technique, a feel-good way to boost productivity. But there is a problem with brainstorming. It doesn’t work.” He explains that numerous studies have come to the same conclusion about the technique since its popularization by advertising executive Alex Osborne in 1948. In test after test, brainstorming—creative thinking in groups—didn’t unleash the potential of the group, but rather made each individual less creative.
Critical Interplay
Lehrer goes on to say that the ground rules of brainstorming—no questions, no judgment—as the best way to elicit creativity from a group have also proven to be untrue. Research shows that groups are much more creative, both in quantity and quality of ideas, if they are encouraged to put forth ideas subject to criticism. Debating ideas—defending them and modifying them to address critiques—is more productive than uncritical brainstorming.
Neuropsychologist and creativity researcher Dr. Rex Jung calls the reversal of brainstorming ground rules “constructive antagonism.” He says that the quality of creative ideas put forth individually is higher than those conceived in a group format, “because when you put people together in a room, almost invariably they will try to conform socially. There will be ideas, but a loss of creativity in an attempt to please each other without pushing the envelope.” Jung counters the argument about the highly creative brainstorming sessions of Seinfeld or Saturday Night Live writers, for example. He acknowledges that they work in group formats but points out that in this type of collaboration “there's often an element of antagonism involved and critical interplay, as opposed to cooperativeness.”
Necessary Downtime
As Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico and Research Scientist at the Mind Research Network, Dr. Jung works on the emerging frontier of the study of creativity. He helped identify a phenomenon called “transient hypofrontality,” which he explains with a commutation analogy. Intelligence is like a “superhighway where massive numbers of connections are being made between the different parts of the brain with speed and directness.” The creative brain, on the other hand, “meanders,” leaving the superhighways for “side roads and dirt roads, where it makes new and unexpected connections associated with artistry, discovery, and humor.”
When our powerful, organizing frontal lobes “downregulate,” we enter a “hypofrontal state” and become more inventive. Jung cites famous discoveries formulated in hypofrontal states, like that of Archimedes, who discovered density while taking a bath, and Kekulé, who daydreamed of a snake swallowing its own tail and conceived the benzene ring.
Whether we take a bath, nap, walk, meditate, or exercise, Jung says we can prime our brains to be less directed and more creative. Validating our need for downtime, his cutting-edge research considers it a necessary precondition for creativity. How encouraging! I think I’ll decelerate now, shift my frontal lobes into low gear, and let my brain meander down a side road into the eye of a perfect storm.
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Written and designed to showcase EILEEN FISHER's Wellness Program and company culture, this piece is part of a series exploring health, psychology, and brain science.
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