Vacations are important.  Regular getaways may be even more so.  A change of scenery is important not just to relax and recharge, but also to create a different environment from the typical routine.  As brilliant physicist, Albert Einstein, noted:  “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”  There is even a current car commercial on TV that depicts this notion: a guy working late into the night, struggling with a problem, takes an exhilarating ride in his [brand] car returning to his office exhilarated and productive.  As bicyclist and Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong might say, it’s not about the car. 

Sometimes not only letting go of a problem, task or other conundrum for a period of time, but actually shifting oneself to a different perspective or viewpoint, allows a matter to come into better focus and answers magically appear.  Actually, it is not so much magic as it is simply utilizing different thinking, reasoning and feeling pathways (and neurological functioning) as a result of taking a different action.  Such shifts are much more easily created by simply changing something physical, like body posture, your location, the view and so on.  Changes in environment, by simply moving to and operating from a different space, can foster such shifts.  Rearranging your office furniture may work, but a getaway is even better.  When you return, the office itself may look a bit different -- without any heavy lifting!  And vacations are generally more fun, which is an easy way to stimulate your creative juices.

There is a reason that humans have so many built-in capacities, and persistent hard work is only one of them.  Creativity, innovation, lateral thinking and idea-generation are not born from the same sort of approach.  That is not to say these activities do not require effort and action, or even practice, but they do require doing something different -- a change from the routine.  While routines are important -- they become the “grooves” of efficiency – those grooves can become ruts, and the walls of a rut can get so high it appears there is no climbing out!  At Ingenuity Ventures, we say:  at that point you cannot climb hard or fast enough to exit the rut for a long weekend away!  And you cannot just spend that weekend at home (the familiar lawn, laundry and similar routines will no doubt attempt to command your attention and pull you into a different rut).

In his book “Working with Emotional Intelligence,” Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., identifies the non-technical, human emotional intelligence skills needed to foster creativity – the birthplace of new ideas and solutions, sometimes to old intractable problems.  First identified by 19th century mathematician Jules-Henri Poincaré, they are preparation, incubation, illumination and execution.  Preparation, which involves being willing to immerse oneself in the problem, is often where the hard-working get stuck.  Incubation is where mental activities are put on the back burner, freeing the mind to wander and play.  Note the word “play” here – an activity often best done outside the office, which traditionally does not support what might be seen as frivolity.  That play, however, allows the next phase of Illumination to occur – the epiphany (more of the “Aha!” or “I could have had a V-8,” than the mystical variety).  The first three stages allow for the fourth, Execution, implementing new actions with persistence and determination.

Preparation and execution are the most common approaches used to “get things done.”  But, a steady diet of those approaches fails to build on the other numerous abilities we have that often lay dormant and unexercised.  So exercising them requires that we take new and different actions.  When there is a huge decision to make or when things aren’t going the way you would prefer, changing your physical environment – actually changing where you are geographically in the world, and what you are looking at and experiencing – can make a huge difference.  We tend to reserve vacations for longer periods of time away, such as over summer or around holidays, with traditional activities and visits with families and friends that may not provide the type of deviation from routine that allows us to exercise our creative abilities.  A weekend away even if it’s only 75 miles, that cute bed-and-breakfast on the edge of town, or a day canoeing on a local waterway or taking your kids to a local amusement park, can stimulate the incubation and illumination that’s needed in a given situation.  Even picking up your files and papers, and setting up work in the local public library or a conference room in another part of the building for an afternoon can catalyze a shift.  Rather than bearing down harder, what may be needed is to let go, get away, and permit other parts of your intelligence to come into play.

Some workplaces take this into account in their management practices.  Rather than “sick days” which may encourage staff to be “sick” when what they really need is time away for another reason (or simply to stimulate creativity or other areas of intelligence), they provide for “personal days” and even encourage their use.  One large company we know even had a President who actually requested that each member of management staff take an hour every Wednesday afternoon to close their office door and reflect -- not catch up on work or write memos, but to actually reflect on what was working, what wasn’t, what might be done differently, to look at the big picture and get out of the day to day minutia.  Of course, some of management took a nap.  But the truth is, for them a nap may have been what allowed them to face the rest of the week in a different frame of mind, which is the whole point.  The refreshing pause can look like whatever works for you personally, and if management doesn’t address or encourage it (or if you are management) you may need to design this yourself.  Do something different that shifts your perspective and focus, and particularly stimulates new ideas and thinking.  One of the best ways to do that is to simply change your physical environment in a way that also shifts your emotional state – from frustrated, angry or fearful about a project, to happy, excited or curious about something (almost anything) else.

INGENUITY GEM:

What are you doing in your life to “create and see things differently”?  What changes can you make in your physical environment, schedule or routines to shift your perspective from time to time?  What mini-vacations, getaways or retreats have you planned and scheduled as permission to engage in “incubating innovation” in your life and work?  Here are some additional ideas (and you may want to take a small notebook along to record the “Aha’s” that come to you):

*  Have lunch at the park (not at your desk) and/or take a walk around the block.

*  Go to the zoo – with or without your kids.

*  Schedule a long weekend at a resort or spa that is within driving distance.

*  Visit a local art gallery or museum.

*  Hang a “Do Not Disturb Sign” on your closed office every Wednesday from 2 to 3 pm (and don’t answer the phone!)

*  Browse through a local flea market and do some people watching.

*  Any other ideas pop up for you?  Go for it!

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