You may associate creativity with being loose and free. You may imagine a painter having no plan and throwing paint at a canvas to see what happens. You may imagine a composer sitting at a piano and letting his hands wander up and down the keys to just hear what sounds might come out. Exploring your tools or instruments now and then in an unconstrained way is probably a good idea, and may at some point help you to be more creative, but this isn’t the process that leads to creativity most of the time.
Research on the brain and creativity tells us that the first step in creativity is to focus intensely. Whether you’re trying to solve a problem at work or create a new musical masterpiece, being creative starts with focus.
Brain Networks, Not Structures
When most writers write about the brain (including me), they tend to write about particular brain areas, for example, the fusiform facial area for processing human faces, or the parts of the brain that process sound, or emotions. Vinod Menon and Steven Bressler (2010) started writing a few years ago about what they call “large-scale brain networks.”
Instead of thinking about particular structures in the brain, neuroscientists, following Menon and Bressler’s lead, are now looking at how different parts of the brain are networked together, what each particular network does, and even how the networks interact. These brain networks are a critical part of understanding the neuroscience of creativity.
The Executive Attention Network
The first network you need to know about is the executive attention network. When this network is active, you’re concentrating. And it turns out that if you want to be creative, then the first thing you need to do is activate the executive attention network. Creativity starts with intense focus on an issue, idea, or a problem. This is when you set your intention for the problem to be solved, or the creative idea to be worked on.
Note
The executive attention network includes part of the outer area of the prefrontal cortex and some areas at the back of the parietal lobe.
Ask The Right Question
To use your executive attention network to help you creatively solve a problem or come up with a new idea, make sure you’re focusing on the right problem or idea.
You can get so caught up in the problem you’re trying to solve, or the creative idea you want to come up with, that you focus immediately on the solution. But before you focus on the solution, you have to ask the right question. If you don’t start with the right question, then your executive attention network will be focusing on the wrong issue.
Here’s an example from one of my clients, an online clothing retailer. “We have these videos that show some of our most popular apparel items,” the client told me. “How can we get people to watch more videos at our website? If people watch the videos, they’re more likely to buy the product, and so we want to know how we can change the product page so that the videos display right away and automatically.”
That’s an example of not asking the right question. If we didn’t stop and ask, “Is that the right question?” we might have come up with a creative solution like having the videos start as soon as the customer gets to the product page. But is that the best, most creative solution?
There are several other questions that might be better to concentrate on, for example:
“Why aren’t people watching the videos?”
or
“Are there other design changes we could make that would increase sales?”
When you’re trying to solve a problem or come up with a new idea, make sure you’re asking the right question. Don’t assume that the question at hand is the best or right one. Give the executive attention network the best question to concentrate on.
Takeaways
- To spark your creativity, ask yourself a question or set your intention. This will activate your executive attention network. Be specific about what you’re going to work on.
- Make sure you’re asking the right question. Spend time crafting the question so your brain networks will be solving the best problem or giving you ideas for the best outcome.
Leave a Reply