Ideas flow between people, joining together, in unpredictable combinations–this is the source of surprising new ideas. A new study shows that physical, in-person encounters make it more likely for new creative combinations to result in a patentable invention, a striking example of group genius. Breakthrough innovations emerge, unpredictably, from a wandering and improvisational process. The most dangerous creativity myth is that creativity starts with a brilliant idea, and that successful innovation is an execution of that brilliant idea. It’s just the opposite: Creative ideas emerge from acti ..read more

When a basketball team wins a game, the team becomes more reliant on its star players. This is even more likely when the star players stand out far more than the other players. Of course, that makes sense. You want to keep doing what works. But here’s the problem: It makes your team start losing more, according to a recent study by three business school professors. Here are the key findings: When a basketball team wins a game, then in the next games, they start to pass the ball more to their stars and the stars shoot a higher percentage of the shots. This decreases the chance they’ll win the ..read more

Small startups are the drivers of innovation. Inventors start companies, develop their ideas, secure financial backing, line up customers, and grow organically. Think about all of those stories of inventors in garages, cooking up the new ideas that change our lives. Big companies are always worried that some small company is out there, plotting to bring them down with a disruptive new innovation. Established companies want to replicate the secret sauce of innovation in small companies. My own research has identified the best ways for companies to do this. The key is to foster the collaborative ..read more

My favorite quotation about writing is by the German novelist Thomas Mann (1875-1955): “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” If you’re good at something, it should be easier for you, right? But I agree with Thomas Mann. If writing is easy for you, then you’re almost certainly not a writer. (The photo above is Mann at work.) A few years ago, I chatted with a colleague who was retiring from his administrative position here at the university. In retirement, he planned to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a writer. As soon as we sat down, he ..read more

If you’ve read my books, you know that my answer is yes! The most innovative teams have something that I call group flow. It’s when a group is performing at its peak–realizing the maximum potential of the group. It’s more likely when everyone blends egos and participates equally. It’s the group version of your own personal flow state, a state of peak performance where you lose track of time and you’re fully concentrated on the task. In flow, you engage in the activity simply because you love being in that flow state. The experience itself is the motivation, not whatever external reward might c ..read more

Here’s how a human author writes, according to French literary theorist Roland Barthes in 1967: “The text is a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centers of culture… The writer can only imitate a gesture…his only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others.” If you think ChatGPT isn’t creative, then Barthes would respond, neither is the human author. According to Barthes, the author never writes anything original. The “author” as a solitary genius is a ..read more

A wonderful surprise was waiting for me when I came to my campus office this morning! I received the Japanese language translation of my book Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity. It’s published by Yamaha Music. My Japanese colleague Jun Oshima told me that Yamaha Music has published music books for many years, and they’ve recently decided to publish books about how to be more creative. Zig Zag is one of the first. The print quality is phenomenal, they really know how to print books in Japan! It’s a paperback with the cover wrapped in a dust jacket. That’s pretty cool because in ..read more

Most American children grew up singing a song about a dog named “Bingo.” The key part of the song is spelling out the dog’s name, letter by letter, and here are the lyrics: There was a farmer had a dog And Bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O B-I-N-G-O B-I-N-G-O And Bingo was his name-o It’s not great poetry but it’s a lot of fun to shout out! Bingo is in the news this week because the dog was mentioned in a U.S. Supreme Court dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts. At issue in the case was whether electronic bingo–with gambling–was permitted on tribal lands in the state of Texas. Texas state law re ..read more

When I get on an airplane, I like to bring on board the latest issue of The Economist, the British magazine that’s sometimes criticized for “neoliberalism.” Especially by socialists. Years ago, I was at an academic conference in England, making small talk with two English professors during a break, and I mentioned reading an article in The Economist. One of the professors almost snorted (English people thankfully don’t actually snort so this was more of a stifled snort) and then sneered, “Do you believe in markets?” (English people don’t sneer, either, but anyway…) I later learned that this is ..read more

Doing art stretches your brain in ways different from math or science. When we understand how students learn to do art, we’ll better understand how they learn best in other disciplines, too. What the arts and the other subjects share is that they all benefit when students learn how to be creative. My research shows that the creative process is very similar across fields, and learning to be creative is similar across fields. There’s a lot of exciting new research on how people learn to engage in the arts. That’s why I decided to edit a special issue, of a scientific journal, on the topic of “Le ..read more