Do you remember watching the movie I, Robot (or for the Asimov enthusiasts among us, reading the original novel) and thinking, ‘That's so far out of our purview it's ridiculous’? What about Gattaca, or for that matter The Matrix? In reality, each of these movies contains aspects of our ‘brave new world’ that have become a part of the everyday ‘meh’.

As we move further into the digi-age, the rapidity of technological innovation and intuitive design is increasing at an almost unthinkable pace. While these additions to our app shelf will undoubtedly contribute to our rapid adaptation and ability to keep connected and above all to cope, it will be our own mental flexibility, the ability to solve problems quickly and to come up with new ideas, that will be most valuable for our future selves.

Insight is a highly valued cognitive ability. A higher level of insight will differentiate the great from the good and provide the crucial competitive edge in the future.

Whole-brain thinking

There is no right brain, left brain. While it has been popular to consider ourselves as being controlled by one or the other, there is no scientific basis for this. We use the whole brain to think.

We are all whole-brain creators. So what are the distinctions between the two hemispheres joined together by the corpus callosum?

The main difference, as described by Robert Ornstein, is that ‘the right brain hemisphere provides the context. The left hemisphere keeps tracks of the details’ (see figure 10.1).

Iain McGilchrist, in his book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, suggests the function of the corpus callosum is to keep the two hemispheres apart, to allow each side of the brain to incubate those ideas necessary for the components of divergent thought required for creativity.

He quotes Einstein that ‘the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant’ while arguing that we have created a society that honours the servant but has forgotten the gift.

What McGilchrist is implying here is that we have progressively early-adopted using our more logical and analytical thinking directed from the left hemisphere but diminished our capacity for creative thought.

Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future, takes this one step further to argue that ‘our focus on facts, programming and numbers has led to a devaluing of skills that are often the strengths of the emotionally sensitive, making meaning, consoling, caretaking, awareness of undercurrent in interpersonal interactions and creativity’.

While he is on the right track, we don't want to be just right brainers either. What's needed is the appropriate integration of reason and imagination so they work together seamlessly.

As Szabolcs Keri reminds us, ‘creativity is the connectivity of large scale brain networks. How brain areas talk to each other is critical when it comes to originality, fluency and flexibility’. Our right hemisphere sustains a broad awareness of our environment, while the left is more precise with a sharper focus and greater attention to detail.

The problem is that our education system still favours and rewards academic achievement based on measurable applications of logic, memory and reason above creativity. One outspoken critic of the education system, Sir Ken Robinson, believes our innate sense of creativity is knocked out of us by the school curriculum. He sees education as a major global challenge to adequately preparing our future thinkers.

It should seem obvious that our ability to think outside the square and come up with new ideas is going to matter far more than merely having access to data. Many believe the information superhighway could still do with a few more underpasses, several more lanes and at least three new roundabouts.

Type creative

Think of the stereotype of the neurotic artiste, flinging a bottle at the dressing-room mirror, demanding a bath filled with asses' milk and that everyone pray to Zuul prior to performances lest the god be offended. Of course, the whole image of histrionic outbursts and psychotic behaviour by ‘creatives’ is grossly unfair and wrong; however, the brain science does suggest there is a link between creativity and mental health.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have shown how the dopamine system (the brain's reward system) in highly creative people such as writers, artists and musicians is very similar to that seen in people with schizophrenia. Both have fewer dopamine receptors in the area of the brain called the thalamus, which acts as a kind of relay centre filtering information before it reaches our conscious awareness.

It's thought that having fewer of these receptors could explain why the mechanism in those who are highly creative can identify many more uncommon associations when problem solving — and why those with mental illness sometimes make bizarre associations. It comes down to the level of filtering being applied.

As Dr Ullen, leader of the study, said ‘Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box’.

It's very important to note here that being creative does not imply you are at risk of mental illness. You do not have to be mentally ill to be creative, and you do not have to be creative to develop mental illness.

Indeed the act of creativity is generally associated with feelings of happiness, personal growth and wellbeing. Scott Barry Kaufman, Scientific Director of the Imagination Institute, reporting on the findings of another Swedish study, notes that the siblings of people with autism, and first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and anorexia, appear to be over-represented in creative professions. He concludes that ‘mental illness is conducive to creativity indirectly by enabling the relatives of those afflicted [with it] to open the mental flood gates, but maintain the protective factors necessary to steer the chaotic, potentially creative storm’.

All that jazz

It was during a trip to New Orleans that I first got to experience musicality at its most primal. We were in a dark, smoky club listening to collective improvised jazz at its finest. Captivated, we listened in awe, trying to anticipate what might be coming next and delighting in the fluidity of musical exchange between the players.

Neuroscientists who have used brain scans to study the brains of jazz musicians were able to observe multiple areas of the brain being activated during this type of improvisation.

Studies from Finland by Oikkonen and others assessing musical creativity discovered a cluster of genes associated with higher musical creativity. It appears that these genes are associated with higher levels of serotonin, which increases connectivity (plasticity) in the area of the brain called the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and higher levels of creativity.

In addition, work by neuroscientist and musician Daniel Levitin reveals how music influences our health through neurochemical change in our sense of reward, motivation and arousal, stress levels, immune system and social affiliation.

Perhaps you have used music as a way to soothe an overbusy mind, relieve anxiety or tension, and unwind. Or do you listen to music to put your brain into a relaxed state so you can start thinking in a more creative, non-focused way?

Creativity boosts confidence in our ability to develop new skills as well as broadening our interests.

Having the right environment and encouragement plays a part in how willing we are to be creative. Of course growing up in a family that encourages creative expression will have an impact that is different from what would be experienced growing up in a household where creativity plays second fiddle to academic achievement or is simply considered irrelevant. But regardless of our upbringing, our marvellous plastic brain gives us all the capacity to develop our creative side.

Aha! So that's what insight is all about

The Oxford Dictionary defines insight as ‘the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something’, from the Middle English for ‘inner sight’ or ‘wisdom’. But insights don't pop up automatically. Sometimes they need to be coaxed, cajoled or teased out.

Our understanding about how insight is generated owes much to the work of Jung-Beeman and Kounios. They began by studying the five distinctive electrical waveforms of brain wave activity that occur depending on whether we are awake, alert or asleep (see figure 10.2).

• Delta waves (0–4 Hz) are associated with deep sleep.
• Theta waves (4–7 Hz) occur when we are in a drowsy state, such as when meditating.
• Alpha waves (8–13 Hz) provide the dominant rhythm of the brain at rest. These waves are associated with relaxation and help ‘gate’ neural activity, reducing visual input processing to help eliminate distractions.
• Beta waves (13–40 Hz) occur when we are in an alert state and increase when we are anxious. Beta activity in the visual cortex correlates with visual focus.
• Gamma waves (30–100 Hz) synchronise especially when we pay attention.

So what happens in the brain when we create insight? Far from being random, insight follows a process.

It is a right hemisphere activity. When we are preparing to solve a problem with insight we direct our attention to be less focused and more inward looking (reflective). The brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is activated. The ACC acts to detect errors or differences in our environment. As already mentioned, it is involved in cognitive control and attention. This may include the brain preparing to monitor competing responses to the problem and to assist in shifting mental processing to multiple trains of thought.

As the moment of insight draws closer, alpha wave activity in the visual cortex increases, dampening down visual distraction, just as some people will close their eyes when searching for an answer.

A third of a second before the Eureka moment, a peak of gamma wave activity sweeps across the right anterior, superior temporal gyrus. This is the birth of a new idea, when a set of neurons binds or wires together uniquely for the first time, before emerging into our consciousness as the solution.

The bliss of insight is that when it occurs it is sudden and complete, as if the answer was sitting there all along just waiting to be noticed. We have that all-encompassing certainty that we are looking straight at the answer.

Better still, studies by Wills and others show that we remember insightful solutions better because of heightened activity in the hippocampus (the area used to form and retrieve memories) that happens at the same time.

Flexible thinking and problem solving

Insight is one approach we use to solve problems. The other? Our left brain–dominant use of logic and analysis. We tend towards a natural preference for one approach over the other. Engineers are more likely to approach a problem from an analytical perspective. (I can confirm this as my husband is also an engineer.)

The difficulty here is that because the prefrontal cortex has limited capacity, you can hold only two or three complex ideas front of mind at any one time, and even this consumes a great deal of cognitive energy. It doesn't take long before cognitive exhaustion kicks in, and the likelihood of resolving the problem just packed its bag and walked out of the room, booked a taxi and went to the nearest day spa. Forging on at this point is pretty futile as increasing levels of cognitive fatigue further reduce processing speed and power.

How do you deal with your mental impasses? Do you have another cup of coffee or three? Or do you branch out into gathering further information or brainstorming ideas with others?

The alternative method is to use insight. The advantage here is that, being a primarily subconscious process, it is far less energy-consuming and the enormous capacity of the subconscious mind provides a much larger cupboard to delve into to look for new thought associations.

What is fascinating is that our brain predetermines which route is most likely to come up with the solution and guides us towards that route (which is fine if we are paying attention to our brain's signals).

We are influenced by other factors too. They may include:

• pressure from work colleagues waiting for your contribution before they add their input
• your boss screaming at you because they wanted the problem fixed yesterday
• other external pressures that make you feel tired or anxious.

None of these factors are conducive to effective problem solving, especially creative or insightful problem solving.

So how do you know which method you use to solve problems?

Getting into RATs

No, this isn't another of those experiments using our verminous furry friends. Working with a test for creativity initially devised by Mednick back in 1962, Jung-Beeman and others produced their own version, called the Compound Remote Associates Test, to determine whether you use analysis or insight to solve a problem.

In this test you are asked to look at three words and then come up with a single-solution word to form a common compound word or two-word phrase. Try it, allowing yourself around 30 seconds to come up with your answer.

Here are three words:

HAT, CHOCOLATE, TOOL

(The solution is BOX: hatbox, chocolate box, toolbox.)

Too easy? Try another set.

STORM, WAVE, DRAIN

(The solution is BRAIN: brainstorm, brain wave, brain drain.)

Which brain method did you use? If you applied logic and analysis, you may have tried a couple of different possibilities before settling on the one word that fitted best? This is left brain dominance. If the answer came to you immediately and seemed obvious, you were using insight. This is right brain dominance.

Does it matter which route we use?

No. What matters is to develop the mental flexibility to use one or both methods as most appropriate to a particular task.

Solving a problem with insight may follow contemplation and thinking around an issue that has been hanging around for a while, but sometimes insight can occur even when we are under duress. Having the skill to quieten the mind at ‘fight or flight’ moments can provide an opportunity for the subconscious to come up with a possible solution.

Joining the dots

Where do you come up with your best ideas? Is it as you wake up in the morning? Is it during an exercise session, while walking on the beach, following the black line in the swimming pool or in the shower? Wherever it is, it's unlikely to be while sitting focusing hard at work.

Creativity is really about joining the dots.

Figure 10.3 depicts a well-known puzzle: nine dots are arranged in a square. The challenge is to connect all of the dots using four straight lines, without lifting your pen from the paper or passing through any dot more than once? Figure 10.4 (overleaf) shows the solution.

This brainteaser is a simple example of when an answer can be found only by thinking in a different way — outside the box.

Our brain is much like some teenagers who would prefer to take the easy route than put in the extra effort to find a new way. It's energy saving for the brain, and the brain sure likes to conserve energy. When presented with a puzzle like this we automatically look for a quick solution, except that doesn't work here.

It takes more effort to push past our ‘usual way of doing things’ to explore how an unexpected or previously unexplored approach might produce the answer. Once found, that extra effort of working it out produces a much stronger association for your brain to use in its repertoire next time you face a similar challenge.

Practicing brainteasers like these is a great way to develop ‘out of the box’ thinking and help prepare you for when you face a seemingly impossible challenge in the workplace. They keep you solution focused and open to the possibility of exploring all options and alternatives. Figure 10.4 shows the solution.

As with all good brainteasers, once you know the solution it seems so obvious! How did you go with it? Did you try a number of different approaches to see what worked? Did you get frustrated by not being able to solve it? If you did work out the answer, your success probably came about through discarding the ‘expected’ way of solving the problem.

Looking outside our known area of expertise allows us to expand our thinking and deepen our understanding. So if you see something on a topic that you don't know much about but that piques your interest, explore it and see if new connections start to pop up. Creativity is the ability to connect disparate thoughts and ideas and put them together in a novel way. Which begs the question, is there such a thing as a completely original idea? Maybe all our original ideas are actually no more than compilations of known elements put together in new relationships that haven't been thought of before.

Free-range thinking

Free-range chickens are much happier egg layers, being able to wander about freely with plenty of space. Human minds are much the same.

If your workplace constrains innovative thinking because it prioritises process and conformity, it could reflect the nature of the work required or the timeless ‘that's the way things are done around here’ mindset. And let's face it, many jobs do require conformity to standards and rules, both for a consistent product and for safety reasons.

But if your work is of the sort where thinking and curiosity could improve efficiency and productivity, then feeling safe to voice your ideas, and having them heard or acknowledged without fear of putdown or ridicule, is a first step towards a more innovative outlook. That's because a brain that feels safe feels relaxed and can access the prefrontal cortex more easily, and feels free to mind-wander as well.

A great example of free-range thinking is offered by the Australian enterprise software company Atlassian. From day one, the founders of the company recognised they needed continuous innovation to develop and build the company successfully. The challenge was how to achieve this on a consistent basis, so they introduced ShipIt Day (formerly known as FedEx Day), a quarterly 24-hour period made available to all employees.

The rule of the game is that all staff have a 24-hour period to work on something related to Atlassian products that they wouldn't be working on normally, but something they have wanted to investigate — an idea they have wanted to develop, a passion, some area where they want to see change. At the end of the 24 hours all ideas are pitched in a show-and-tell and voted on. The winner gets to take home a trophy and a limited edition T-shirt, and there's a beer party to celebrate all efforts.

The success of this initiative has seen other companies around the world who also depend on a high level of creativity adopt similar programs.

Time out for thought

One reason why so many companies struggle with innovation in the workplace is we are all too busy. Busy people are working hard all … day … long. It seems like there is never the time to allocate to innovation, even where it is encouraged. New ideas take time to explore and consider. Coming up with a list of bullet-point suggestions isn't innovation. Ideas need to be fleshed out, explored, refined, developed or discarded.

Wise companies that need to encourage more creative thinking schedule in down time for regular brain breaks to allow the mighty subconscious some room to breathe. But just putting a beanbag in a room with some subdued lighting isn't necessarily going to work, because creativity can't be ordered off the menu like a pizza.

Society and sensibility

What is the prevailing mood at your workplace? If staff morale is low, this is a big red danger sign and there is little prospect of innovation. While it's nonsense to insist on staff being ‘happy’, having the social sensitivity to recognise when someone is unhappy and to do something about it is an obvious first line to address.

Being in a bad mood reduces concentration and willingness to engage in out-of-the-box thinking. Emotions are highly contagious, and all it takes is one disgruntled employee or staff member to reduce creative thinking across an entire department or team.

Happiness comes from doing work we find stimulating and rewarding. How we view our work will have a huge impact on how we approach our tasks, trials and challenges. Boosting our mood can be as simple as sharing a joke, watching some comedy and having a good laugh, because this reduces stress and tension and promotes whole-brain thinking.

Having a positive affect or mood matters for creativity because it:

• enhances your awareness of alternative options
• makes it easier for you to switch between different strategies or approaches
• makes it easier for you to make the most appropriate selection at that time.

Anxious staff solve fewer problems with insight compared with those in a more positive mood, who not only solve more problems overall but do so with a greater degree of insight.

Innovation in a flux

Fluctuations in attention will occur because of:

• the nature of the work and how much interest it holds for us; it's harder to maintain attention on something we find boring
• our level of fatigue; cognitive fatigue due to lack of sleep or poor quality of sleep will greatly diminish our ability to stay focused and increase the risk of errors.

A tired or bored brain is a stressed brain and far less able to innovate.

It's about recognising individual variations in resting-state brain activity. If your mind is constantly on the go, you might be a PFC rally driver, looking to resolve problems and challenges with your logic or analysis. You might be known as ‘the creator’, your mind constantly buzzing with new ideas. The buzz alone isn't enough, of course; you have to capture the ideas and design a plan to implement them effectively.

Other brains operate best in a calmer state with a higher level of alpha waves. People who practise regular meditation have been shown to be more insightful, because it becomes easier to drop into a calmer mind that is more conducive to accessing our subconscious thoughts.

Creativity requires focus. It's important to know you are looking at the problem that needs solving. Once you are clear about that, opening up to consider options and possibilities becomes easier.

David Perkins, author of The Eureka Effect, suggests ‘we are unlikely to achieve insight unless we have struggled with the problem some’. He's right. Those flashes of inspiration don't come from nowhere without previous consideration and forethought. Even then there is no guarantee that the right answer will reveal itself. However, getting enough sleep, keeping stress levels tuned down and remaining curious all help keep the brain in an optimal state for best performance.

Creativity on the move

Aerobic exercise boosts our brain's plasticity. It enhances neurogenesis, the production of new neurons, and facilitates the interaction between our PFC and amygdala. Tamping down the amygdala reduces symptoms of stress and anxiety. Exercise boosts our mood, which is great for creativity.

A study by Blanchette and others in 2005 showed how creative potential is increased immediately by aerobic exercise (and for two hours following it). Studies from the Netherlands have also reported that regular exercise acts as a cognitive enhancer of creativity.

It's brainstorming? Quick, get in out of the nasty weather!

Have you ever been in a workshop where the facilitator suggests you spend the next 30 minutes brainstorming for new ideas (then slopes off for a quiet cigarette and a cup of coffee)? I have, and more often than not the activity failed to deliver on its promise.

Despite research indicating that brainstorming isn't always an effective way to produce great ideas, it continues to be promoted in many workplaces confounded by falling sales or productivity.

‘I think we should brainstorm the lack of visitors to the website.’

‘Er … we could just put some new products on there. The ones we have up currently haven't been in stock for five months.’

‘Yes! Brainstorming, that's the key. I'll grab the whiteboard, you get the butcher paper.’

It sounds as if it ought to work. Getting a group of enthusiastic like-minded people together to come up with new ideas should be a breeze, except it doesn't work. Brainstorming is a technique that has been around since 1953 — and was disproved five years later by Yale researchers who found that brainstorming diminished the creative output of a team. Yet the myth (like that of multitasking) has persisted despite all contrary evidence.

Yes, brainstorming will produce new ideas that can be quickly written up on large sheets of butcher paper, but there are problems:

• You can end up with a whole barrel full of less-than-useful ideas, and possibly a few of those typewriter-crazy monkeys. This is a waste of time and effort because it is the quality of ideas, rather than their quantity, that matters. Pooling too many ideas means it can then be difficult to pick out the really good ones.
• Sometimes there is one voice in the group that is louder and more persistent than the others. This can interfere with our own thoughts, which may have been moving in a different direction. Once someone else's big idea is upfront it tends to swamp our own ideas.
• If the vocal person's idea is taken up by the group, other ideas that might be even better are sidelined or not considered any further, whether through fear, laziness, a sense of needing to keep the peace or plain old boredom.
• Feeling pressured to come up with an idea in front of others limits innovative thinking and forces the brain to use more logic and analysis, prefrontal cortical activity that is very energy intensive and quickly exhausting. The need for group harmony overrides the ability to come up with anything useful, with the result that the brainstorming shuts down the thinking processes of the group.

Charlan Nemeth from UCLA found that a 20-minute brainstorming session typically produced an average of three new ideas, compared with seven from a 20-minute focused discussion group.

Skilled debaters develop the art of being able to defend or deconstruct another person's argument or idea. Far from being an aggressive technique, this kind of debate provides the perfect opportunity for those engaged to think more deeply around the issue and to formulate their own opinions.

Overall, debate and critique have been shown to produce more high-quality ideas in a group setting, increasing the average number of new ideas by up to 20 per cent. The greater engagement with the task may provoke more argument or disagreement, but it results in a better outcome.

It's like playing Scrabble: you may see a quick and easy word you can add, but the challenge is to think harder and find a better answer that will score more points.

Is there ever a place for brainstorming? Yes, if directed appropriately:

1. Allow individuals to brainstorm alone first.
2. Then bring the group together to collectively identify which ideas address the problem best and set up a shortlist of those deserving of further thought and attention.
3. Encourage group discussion to debate the pros and cons of any proposed ideas and polish them up ready to answer the question, ‘Will this solve the problem we are addressing?’

For the individual: creativity 101

If we adopt a childlike approach to our thought processes, our curiosity will increase, and therefore so will our creativity. Children are more open to exploring the unfamiliar. It's about allowing ourselves the freedom to explore the unknown and challenge accepted thinking and practice.

It's also about broadening and expanding our interests. We expand our vocabulary through reading books. We discover new passions and hidden talents through trying new things, talking to different people and reframing how we approach things.

We choose to maintain space for the imagination beyond the normal and routine. Weekends may require us to complete our usual chores, but we still have time to improvise a new culinary masterpiece, develop an idea for a new hobby, or jot down our thoughts for a story, a book or a piece of music.

It's about associating with others to talk about new ideas, to learn from others you see as having a particular passion or expertise, and to imagine how to take this further. Creative coach Dan Goodwin encourages us to develop a ‘Curiosity Habit’ so we stay constantly inquisitive about our world and how things (and people) operate. Isaac Newton once said, ‘If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants’.

For the organisation: igniting the creativity spark

A workplace culture that encourages staff to speak up and share their ideas provides a brain-safe environment that fosters imagination and creativity.

Beyond just listening, it's important that we channel ideas towards a pathway where they can be discussed and explored. This might mean establishing an ideas tank, from which individual and team members along with managers can choose ideas for further deliberation and/or implementation.

Those ideas not selected for action still need to be investigated and constructive feedback provided on how they could be pitched differently or improved on. Demonstrating a genuine appreciation of all ideas fosters a continuing creative spark.