Practice Process Mindfulness

I’m thrilled to be back in Tokyo this week, visiting old friends and making new ones at a couple of workshops and keynote events. One of the gifts that I regularly receive from global audiences is fresh insights on the innovation process, often illuminated by subtle language differences. Here’s a fun example from a Japanese company building the innovation capacity of a group of senior leaders:

We hit the point of the program where we ask folks to reflect on the differences between the two primary modes of thinking in creative work: convergent thinking (making decisions, eliminating options, refining, etc), and divergent thinking (generating options, imagining interpretations, seeking unexpected inputs, etc).

One high-ranking woman in the group offered, “When we are diverging, it’s ok to throw out anything. When we are converging, we have to think responsibly.” I loved that! A native English speaker likely wouldn’t have put it that way — implying that a core aspect of creative thinking is “irresponsible” — because it might appear insulting to the teacher.

But I thought, “That’s exactly right! It does feel irresponsible to diverge!”

Her comment helped crystallize a key insight: we all want to be responsible stewards of company resources and the opportunities we have been given. In so doing, we hold onto a mental model that a good steward is always responsible. And if divergence feels irresponsible, then we can be fooled into thinking we should never diverge.

But all the wildly creative people I know protect time for such “irresponsibility.” I can’t help but be reminded of Kevin Kelly’s goal of doing something useless every day.

When the history books are written, one of the defining contributions the d.school will be credited with making is that we brought clarity to teams, helping them ask themselves, “What kind of thinking is appropriate, when?” We call such clarity being “Mindful of Process.” And it can seem like mere semantics until you realize that, depending on what kind of thinking is required, we need to show up in very different ways — despite being the same people — because the rules of what constitutes spectacular contributions are almost opposite when you’re diverging.

It’s why legendary creative shops like Second City specifically celebrate “Taboo Day,” to preserve bandwidth for what can otherwise get crowded out in the name of good stewardship.

Of course, we ultimately want to steward organizational resources responsibly. Of course.

But sometimes, the problems we’re facing aren’t entirely clear, and neither are their solutions. In such cases, appropriate stewardship requires divergent thinking, which feels irresponsible.

Truly responsible stewardship demands cultivating such pockets of deliberate irresponsibility, knowing what’s at stake.

Related: Embrace the Useless
Related: Beyond the Prompt: Kevin Kelly
Related: Generate Bad Ideas

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