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Here's the next in our series of weekly managerial TIPS (Techniques, Insights, and Practical Solutions)
to help you better engage your team in the activities that lead to higher performance.
CORE Bites Issue #82
(July 7, 2020)
I used to get in so much trouble for not paying attention in school. I still remember Mrs. McNally, my 4th grade teacher, sending home a report card that stated, "If Neil would spend as much time on his studies as he does daydreaming he might actually improve his grades." [Note: To this day I'm certain she used "might" because she wasn't even sure herself.]
For many, especially in growth and/or highly-collaborative business environments, daydreaming is seen as frivolous and a waste of time. This negative viewpoint is largely due to the fact that daydreaming symbolizes inactivity when what is emphasized (and prized) is productivity and performance. When there's constant pressure to do more, to achieve more, to produce more, it's hard for managers to accept idle time from members of their teams ... or from themselves. While daydreaming may be encouraged within childhood, we adults are supposed to be above such nonsensical interludes of inefficiency.
In the spirit of full-disclosure, it's confession time ... I was once the type of manager who had little patience for 'non-doing' activities—my thought (at the time) was if it didn't look like work, well, it probably wasn't. But that all changed a decade ago...
Part of the initial curricula for my PhD studies included course work on Default Mode Network (DMN) which is the relatively-new study of connected brain areas that show increased activity when a person is not focused on the outside world. Using brain scanning technology, researchers found that when people engage in introspective activities such as daydreaming—while awake but not engaged in any demanding mental task—that creativity and problem-solving capabilities increased. And not by just a little; no, critical and creative thinking capability increased a lot!
My take on this is somewhat metaphorical ... while daydreaming, your thoughts are bouncing all over the place trying on any solution or scenario that piques your interest in the moment; opening up multiple, unconnected 'file-drawers' accessing stored (and often forgotten) knowledge, memories, and experiences—that all agglutinate to spawn/trigger ideas and associations. How many times have you focused on a tough problem—sometimes for hours—only to take a break and go for a walk or a run (for me it's hopping on my elliptical trainer), taking a shower, or doing some gardening, anything where you can unfocus, only to have that 'eureka moment' when the solution flashes into the forefront of your mind from nowhere? And many times this happens when you didn't even know you were thinking about the problem, true? If you're like most people this is a pretty frequent occurrence.
It probably won't surprise you, then, to hear that many brilliant individuals—from Einstein to Marie Curie to Stephen Hawking, among dozens of others—all credit their daydreaming/imagination as the source of their creativity and genius. In fact, it was Albert Einstein who once famously said that imagination was more important than intelligence itself. Some of the world's greatest inventions, most beautiful creations, and most influential thoughts and musings have stemmed from intentionally pursuing what turns out to be an evolutionarily fine-tuned cerebral process—daydreaming.
There's a big difference between poor attention-control, easily-distracted types of daydreaming and positive-constructive daydreaming. The HVAs listed below will focus on the latter and provide you with proven tips to increase your (and your team's) critical and creative thinking capability. This week (starting today), give these ideas a try:
I'd love to hear how these HVAs work for you!
Neil Dempster, PhD, MBA
RESULTant™ and Behavioral Engineer
"Everything starts as somebody's daydream."
— Larry Niven —