Successful innovation with the power of the outdoors

Garry Pratt is the co-founder of Earswitch, a sensor technology startup. He was previously a Resident Entrepreneur and a Teaching He Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the University of Bath. He is also the co-founder of Outside/community and Walking Leaders, Walking He serves as a mentor, facilitator and guide for expeditions.

Below, Garry shares five key insights from his new book. The Creativity Factor: Harnessing the Power of the Outdoors to Innovate SuccessfullyListen to the audio version read by Garry himself in the Next Big Idea app.

1. To be innovative or entrepreneurial is to be creative.

The future of the world depends on creativity. Creativity is the lifeblood of the future and the oil of industry. Radical innovation rarely comes from people who are stuck in their own ways and who know more or have more information.

As far back as the 1970s, British economist George Shackle developed a rigorous theoretical framework for the nature of the entrepreneurial process. The idea is that business planning and innovation cannot focus on actual, concrete knowledge of the future, but instead only on the imagination of it.

Since we do not know the future, entrepreneurs, managers, and workers cannot act simply by finding the best options based on past statistical information. Instead, we must create and use imaginary futures to address the question of possibility. The key to this is to accept that imagination can be a conscious, unconscious, introspective and embodied process. Real imagination should include sketching, building, playing, talking, and connecting with the real physical world.

A 2012 study by Benjamin Baird found the results surprising. Three groups were tested for creativity in three different settings. Creative problem solving and idea incubation were 40% better in the group engaged in less demanding tasks, simply resting or resting, than in the group doing more demanding tasks. As surprising as this may seem, Baird and his colleagues argue that, in the absence of distractions, our thinking tends to revert to the basis of logical, sequential patterns. doing. When our brains are challenged with complex tasks, there is no room for creativity. Active distraction is the sweet spot for creativity to blossom, not just a 1% increase, he’s a whopping 40% increase.

2. A desk is a dangerous place to see the world.

If one word had to be used to identify why humanity has not and never will reach its full potential, it is encounter. Most modern administrative structures have historically, and somewhat inadvertently, been designed to put up structural fences, stifling individual and team imagination and inhibiting precious serendipity. increase. Both serendipity and imagination should be key to developing new ideas and driving innovation.

Trapped within these established, widely accepted, and frequently taught structures, managers and founders strive to know before they do, and rarely do before they know. Their ability to take Jones-style leaps of faith becomes severely limited as they strive to measure, test, and see what supports them beyond the conceptual abyss.

“Both serendipity and imagination should be key to developing new ideas and driving innovation.”

Before assembling a team, engaging a few advisors and facilitators, and jumping into another business strategy session in a soulless boardroom, founders and innovators need to focus on pure creativity and enhancing idea generation. I have. Perhaps only then will these meetings become truly useful tools for exploring these ideas. A meeting can be like running a factory process where most new ideas can and should be rejected.

3. No more brainstorming.

The free-association process embedded in brainstorming, especially the piggyback approach, actively limits participants’ use of their imagination to develop new ideas. In 2010, Brian Mullen and his colleagues surveyed his team of over 800 businesses and found that brainstorming groups were actually significantly less productive in both the quality and quantity of original idea generation. We have come to a conclusion. In fact, they were more likely to come up with original ideas when they weren’t actively interacting.

In a survey of founders and co-founders of fast-growing, stock-backed, scale-up companies, more than 75% of respondents reported that their best idea was ‘not at work’ . When asked where they were when they came up with their best idea, 95% said “outdoors.”

“In fact, individuals are more likely to generate original ideas when they are not actively interacting.”

More than 100 years later, we will look back at this century of labor practices and judge them in the same relative terms as today’s Victorian factories and their cramped and poor working conditions. We asked people to spend most of their working life in the same posture. I sit in an often uncomfortable chair, perched on a small desk, and stare at a small screen.

If you need creative workers, give them plenty of time to play. Entrepreneurs who embody their future-oriented imagination in their daily performance create innovation and change the world.

4. Walking outdoors is a proven way to generate new ideas.

Before you can inspire others through your actions, both figuratively and literally, you need to “talk.” Frédéric Nietzsche famously said, “Sit as little as possible.

Walking and speaking are very simple, but they are among the exercises that have the greatest impact on participants’ understanding of their situation and their relationships with others. Walking provides people with an opportunity to connect as equals and share perspectives. This experience can make a big difference.

Getting into the all-important ‘soft attraction mode’ by immersing yourself in the great outdoors is like a long meditation retreat. Your brain begins to ride alpha waves, the same waves that increase during meditation and when you are in a state of flow. They reset our minds, boost our creativity, relieve burnout, and make us feel better.

Walking, as well as being outdoors, is a powerhouse of fresh, quality thinking. Research shows that being outdoors has many cognitive benefits, but walking has a very specific benefit: increased creativity.

“While you’re focusing happily and energetically, your brain slows down into an alpha state, allowing your subconscious mind to filter out different thoughts and solve unresolved problems.”

There is a particular type of “walking for thinking” that is separate from other types of walking. This gait has an optimal speed at which the rhythm of the body and thoughts are in sync, and vice versa. There is a reason for this. While you’re happily focused on getting well, your brain slows down into an alpha state, where your subconscious mind filters different thoughts to solve unresolved problems. This is a state of mind that is likely to get to the heart of things. New ideas are synthesized, insights emerge, and concepts tend to resonate and grow.

The removal of physical, mental and metaphorical boundaries that we experience outside of us directly translates and influences this thinking. The outside is full of metaphors for our thinking. The spoken one, the unspoken one, the cheesy one, the transcendental one, and so on. Out there, side by side, we have different conversations as stories change and stories take shape. This is called outside thinking.

5. Get used to the 20:3:3 rule.

The trick here is to make this a habit. It’s not a “just do it” or “I’ll do it when I can” type of thing. It’s not about “something important happened” or rescheduling because of the weather. It is important in and of itself and should be built into our own habits, team agendas and venture DNA.

Based on Michael Easter’s previous work, the 20:3:3 rule that incorporates all research for this book must be followed. Quarterly outdoor trips.

Simply put, the more time you spend outdoors, the more outside thinking you use, the more ideas you will come up with.

To hear the audio version read by author Garry Pratt, download the Next Big Idea app today.