The Goldilocks Zone of Creativity
I recently worked with a communications team whose leader felt that their creative spark had fizzled. Like many organizations these days, the group struggles to stay afloat of increasing demands and a frenzied pace.
As one team member put it: “It seems like everything needs to be done yesterday.”
In this fast-paced environment, the team found themselves reverting to what worked in the past, rarely allocating time to explore new possibilities. When things are moving fast and there’s pressure for reliable, risk-free solutions, we tend to rely on routines. And nothing stifles creativity quite like a routine.
Sometimes routines are just what the doctor calls for!
Don’t get me wrong: habitual ways of doing things provide the structure and predictability that supports reliable output, consistent results, and efficient completion of projects. When the work needs to be accomplished quickly and it’s clear what’s needed, this is not a bad place to be. Surgical teams often operate within this stable, routinized dynamic. They share a common understanding of their goals; there is a high degree of certainty and agreement that the chosen procedure is the right one for the patient's case; they have the information they need to minimize risk, and there are clear protocols ensuring a coordinated and streamlined surgical process. This is not a situation that calls for a great deal of creativity in the moment.
There’s a time and place for chaos too
The opposite of habitual work is the chaotic group dynamic. In these situations, there’s little or no consensus on the group’s purpose or goals, and no one agrees whether taking action A will result in outcome B. While chaos can produce creative ideas, it often feels stressful because there are so many possibilities and such a limited understanding of how viable the many options are. Ironically, it is this dynamic that holds the greatest potential for systemic transformation—yet that transformation often is a result of upheaval and disruption. Examples of human systems that dip into chaos are venture capitalists who make bold investments with uncertain returns, organizations poised for whole systems transformation, and political revolutions.
The Goldilocks Zone of Creativity: Emergence
Between order and chaos lies “emergence,” the sweet spot for creative work, the Goldilocks zone of balance between freedom and constraint. Just because it is the sweet spot for creativity, doesn’t mean it’s easy or comfortable, though. In this dynamic, there's often consensus on the direction, or guardrails for what’s off the table, but no agreement on the approach, allowing room for fresh ideas. There's an anticipation of results, but the outcomes are not predetermined, creating a fertile ground for innovation, adaptability, and surprise.
Tips for finding and optimizing your time in the Goldilocks zone of creativity:
Carve out time to explore
If you've ever observed a child learning to walk, you'll see the significance of exploration and the amount of creative experimentation needed to acquire the skill. The child tests the range of their balance, tries different movements, and falls down a lot. Before long, they’ve consolidated their learning and become efficient walkers. Without the creative exploratory phase, they wouldn't discover which neural pathways to reinforce to enable them to walk.
Carving out time and space to explore can take many forms. Here are a few from the least time-intensive to the most:
Add inquiry to key phases in your process, During project kick-off, a team conflict, or when you’re stuck, structured inquiry can unearth new possibilities. This could be as simple as a brief pause to consider questions such as "What do we know for sure about our project at this point in time?" and "What do we wonder?"
Innovation workshops: The workshop I ran with the communications team only took three hours, but it transformed the way they think about their work. The team developed a better understanding of the conditions that support creativity: how to foster uncertainty and dissent as they tackle creative tasks. The workshop also enabled them to distinguish between what the work needs and their individual preferences. They now know how to create an environment that may be personally uncomfortable, but more likely to yield innovative outcomes.
Innovation Labs: Some organizations create dedicated teams that operate independently from their regular daily operations. These are designed to foster creative thinking and experimentation that can be integrated into the organization when the results of the work are promising.
Value Differences
A lack of diverse perspectives limits the range of perspectives, which limits the ideas a group can generate. How can you support productive divergence by resisting the urge to “get on the same page” too soon?
Model diversity of thought from the top: “Group Think” is toxic to creativity. Leaders can demonstrate that disagreement doesn’t threaten authority by publicly modeling the serious consideration of a wide range of perspectives, ideas, and opinions.
Collaborate across functions: Teams with different responsibilities often see a problem through very different perspectives—they bring unique sets of information to the task.
Reach out to external partners: At times, gaining a clearer understanding of a current challenge benefits from a broad view. This can include seeking input from people in different industries, testing out ideas with colleagues or networks external to the organization, or gathering feedback from customers.
Embrace failure as inevitable and as an important step in the process
Often failure provides lessons that success cannot. If a child wasn’t allowed to fall, they would never learn to walk. Creativity isn’t efficient, and it doesn’t always result in success, but taking on the risk of failure is the only way to learn and adapt.
Normalize and celebrate failure: Leaders can openly acknowledge their own failures and what they have learned from them. Organizations can communicate that failure is an essential part of the learning process.
Create psychological safety: Ensure and model that employees can share failures without experiencing judgment or repercussions.
Encourage experimentation: You won’t know until you try: rapid prototyping and other small-scale experiments is the best way to test and learn from new ideas. A favorite question of ours at Third Horizon is, “What’s the most fun and informative experiment we could make?” When trying truely new things, there’s no precedent to rely on, so the only way to learn is through taking action and seeing what transpires.
Dedicate time for feedback and reflection: Congratulations, you’ve succeeded in failing! Now what? Use processes like After Action Reviews or retrospectives to garner the insights.
Creativity as Organizational Survival Strategy
Whether you are part of a communications team seeking to rekindle that creative spark or an organization adapting to a world in flux, know that sparking creativity isn’t magic. Creativity consistently thrives under the right conditions. Overly rigid environments or free-for-all environments will suppress it.
In a world of constant change, creativity is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Embracing the inevitability of failure as a stepping stone to success, carving out time for exploration, and leaning into, instead of shying away from, different perspectives on how to move forward, are the keys to finding that sweet spot—the 'Goldilocks zone' of creativity.