Business leaders should take a page out of one of the most brutally-straightforward innovation laboratories in the world: lessons from Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin’s stand-up routines.

It’s hard to imagine more different characters than LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman and John Steinbeck. And yet when it comes to sparking creativity, they share an unexpected hack.

There are no shortcuts to breakthrough outcomes. Even legends like Jerry Seinfeld — after long success — have to endure the pain that accompanies the early experiments on the way to the next innovation.

John Steinbeck said, “It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.” Reid Hoffman deliberately puts items on the agenda of tonight’s meeting.

One of the quirks of the creative process is that it's accelerated by "premature sharing.

We often see this in design workshops, especially among working professionals. We come to a "share out," where we are going to review folks' work, and ask for a show of hands: "Who feels ready to share with the group?" Almost always, not a single hand in the house gets raised…