I have been tracking the see-saw around good/bad behavior in business for about five decades not because I am surprised at the presence of bad actors – the temptations are obvious and (apparently for some business people) irresistible but because I was troubled by (growing) incidents I observed.
Just to be clear, my objective in this article is not to do a book review or a historical reenactment of the life and accomplishments of da Vinci but rather to repeat some lessons identified by the author that can be drawn upon in the context of creativity and/or innovation everyday challenges in the world of business.
My previous articles on this topic were heavily biased toward what can go wrong – essentially the pitfalls related to decision making involving cognitive bias, thinking errors, etc. Today, I am featuring a few ideas on how to facilitate deciding – making choices. This is an area I have written on extensively.
I am willing to bet that the majority of business people feel that all their ideas originate in the brain and that the behavior of their colleagues does so as well. Actually, this seems like a safe bet since the unofficial/unscientific survey I’ve conducted verifies this. What if that was not the case?
What could be the practical value (to the world of business) of an overview of the neuroscience of creativity/innovation? If nothing else – I hope to illustrate what a holistic phenomenon this is and encourage initiatives that could enhance cognition, creativity and innovation.
“Humanity’s ability to alter its own brain function might well shape history as powerfully as the development of metallurgy in the Iron Age, mechanization in the Industrial Revolution or genetics in the second half of the twentieth century.”
What business person would not want to get more out of their most important resource? The challenge presented by this is highlighted in previous articles where I identified just some of the issues. The articles will appear in two parts: (1) Hi-tech/new age and (2) the lo-tech/tried and true.
“Big achievements of the behavioural revolution has been to get economists as a whole to back away a bit from grand theorising, and to focus more on empirical work and specific policy questions.” The Economist (R.A.)