Editorial
What do you do when you’re out of ideas?
We all know that when it comes to innovation, the more ideas, the better. Not every idea is going to stick when you throw it against the wall like spaghetti — so the more ideas you have, the more you can throw against the wall, and the higher chance one sticks. It’s just about the numbers. Once you have an idea or two or three that have some stickiness to them, you have to see which ones can make it through the various hurdles on the way to production.
But how do you generate more ideas when you're stuck? When you’ve had those conversations with your team and generated everything you can think of, but none of the ideas are really jumping out at you? None of them are “the idea,” the one to go forward with. What do you do? Take a break? Do something different? Do something that shifts the energy and shifts everyone’s brain for a little while? Do something that distracts you, that gets you thinking outside of the box, letting things percolate in your brain while you figure out what the right idea to go forward with is?
Yes, to all those things!
But How Do You Do That?
If you need to realign your thinking, it’s time to tap into your inner child. Look for your inner artist! Be playful, be curious, have fun. Go for a walk and collect things to make a sculpture with. Get out the paints and paint or get out a piece of paper and doodle or just scribble. We’re not creating the next Mona Lisa; this is about the process, not the painting or the sculpture. We want to get out of our heads for a while, make some space, do something different. We’re here to re-energize our brains by giving them a break from being analytical and rational, to let our subconscious minds work on the problem while we do something completely different.
Related Article: What is Radical Knowledge Management?
Radical Knowledge Management is about bringing this idea into your organization and day-to-day activities. Arts-based interventions (ABIs) do not need to be big like painting or theater; they can be something smaller and easier like, drawing, word games, poetry or storytelling. Something that engages different parts of your brain rather than the logical, process-oriented parts that we tend to overuse when we do our work.
ABIs open possibilities, helping us to see things from a different perspective. They help raise new questions: What if this, or how about that? What if we did this? What happens if we do this other thing? We develop lots of questions, each building on something each person has said. Playing and having fun take some of the stress off so that our brains can do what they do best: be creative, be innovative and solve problems.
Play Supports KM
Knowledge Management is about learning, and yet the field has traditionally ignored how we learn best: playfully and creatively. We know from research that the arts impact an area of learning known as executive function. Executive function is our capacity to manage our thoughts, actions and emotions to achieve our goals — so that’s even more reason to include the arts in our KM activities, supporting our continuous learning, in this ever-evolving world.
As we grow we are often told that having fun, playing and arts-based activities are not serious — but the truth is, they're deadly serious and necessary if we are going to flourish and reach our potential. ABIs transform the way we work together, the way we live in the world and the way our organizations run.
That can be frightening! It’s unpredictable, outside our comfort zones. No wonder so few people and organizations want to do it. It is like being afraid of success: You would rather stay in your comfort zone, rather than take that step outside and dare to be different —to take the risk of failure even though you might also dare to be great, dare use all the skills and abilities you have at your disposal. Maybe you’ll dare to ask different questions. Dare to propose different solutions. Dare to do the unexpected. That is innovation, and the arts facilitate that.
Related Article: How Creativity Fuels Digital Transformation
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The arts help us reach our potential because they help us build our curiosity, and to be open to new experiences. The arts enable the six aspects of flourishing: curiosity and wonder, awe, enriched environments, creativity, rituals, and novelty and surprise. Arts activities can be as simple as looking at art, or inspiring awe by looking at a rainbow or the stars. Then there are larger initiatives, like art-making, that reconnect us to our creativity, the creativity that has been educated out of us because it was not logical and analytical, because it did not “make sense.” Thanks to neuroscience, we now know that art and creativity are critical to our development and flourishing, even if it does not “make sense.”
So, when you need to replenish your well of ideas, do something that “does not make sense,” do something that goes against everything you have been told, do something playful, fun, artistic and see what happens.
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