Decades ago, I bought a house at an auction. Literally, at an auction on a street, with the whole, going once, going twice, sold. I was in my early twenties and it was all I could afford. It was 900 square feet of basic living space. The 120-year-old, reclaimed hardwood floors were charming but didn’t offset the fact that there was no air conditioning or even a dishwasher.
As a young 20-something who majored in psychology, I had some knowledge of how some common tools worked(see Blog Post 15, Building Robots), but that was in theory. I had never had a lot of opportunities to complete major home repair projects. Well, after buying a house with rock and dirt basement walls, I had plenty of opportunities.
You remember a few sentences ago when I said that it didn’t have air-conditioning right? Well, Maryland in August can easily have long heat spells with 90-degree days and humidity so thick that it feels like you are in the devil’s steam bath. So, the first project I started with was hard-wiring a huge, window air-conditioning unit into my home’s electrical system.
It took a whole weekend and too many trips to Home Depot to do it. The directions were written for someone who knew about amps, watts, and volts. I did not. But with enough trials and lots and lots of errors, I got it done. And, I actually learned quite a bit about electrical projects that would help me in my later efforts. One thing that stuck with me, thanks to the friendly guys at Home Depot was that I had to be careful about the capacitor. It is like a battery. It temporarily holds a lot of electricity. That way, when the air conditioner turns on, the capacitor has enough electricity to give that extra amount to the power-hungry compressor.
Fast forward several decades. I have heard the phrase ‘increase capacity’ increasingly used in leadership circles when discussions turn to employee development and employee productivity. From the little I know about electricity, that would be the equivalent of placing a huge capacitor, say from a refrigerator, into a window air conditioner unit. I bet the bigger capacitor, could provide a more than enough electricity to allow the demanding compressor to do what it needs to do to the coolant.
Even so, just having a bunch of electricity in a capacitor or desire and ability in an employee isn’t enough to get those assets out. Even a battery or capacitor that is charged with a tremendous amount of power will not do anything to release that stored energy by itself. The same holds true for an employee with untapped potential. The battery isn’t lazy and maybe the employee isn’t either. Both are risk averse when giving out energy. The conditions must be right.
To move the electricity and good ideas, there needs to be a very specific set of circumstances. If the circumstances are too far one way, nothing happens. If they are off another way, the release of energy might be spectacular, but isn’t effective. There must be a good conducting pathway for the electricity and the employee’s good idea to reach its destination. If you are a manager, ask yourself two questions. Are you a good conductor for your employee’s good ideas? Is your manager a good conductor for your ideas?
I wouldn’t be surprised if you have heard of the ‘spark of creativity.’ To keep going with the electricity metaphor, sparks are actually pretty rare. A good conductor must just close enough for the risk-averse charge to make the leap to the next part of the pathway. As a leadership sophism, ask yourself are you the right distance to allow for the spark of creavity?
In two previous paragraphs, I talked about what happens when the capacitor releases its stored-up energy or to put it another way, what happens after it gets the electricity. I didn’t write about how it gets the electricity, or to borrow an idea from the post/episode ‘Christmas Vacation’, the ‘before’. The Creativity Algorithm encourages people to focus on the before which in this case means charging the capacitor.
So, what will fill the mental capacitor that might help deliver that extra burst of energy that a good idea needs to form? For now, I am going to answer around that question. In later posts, we will talk about the raw materials of good ideas. For this post, I am going to focus on the process, not on the materials of good idea formation. Let’s go back to the concept of ‘before’.
What creates your metaphorical electricity? I am not talking about the infinitesimal electrical charges that are produced every time your roughly 85 billion neurons talk to each other. That is physically measurable. A neuron’s electrical charge is approximately 30 millivolts (Fletcher, 2014). And of course, that electrical activity produces the brain waves, such as alpha waves, we’ve talked about so much. A lightening is approximately 30 million volts. Quick sophism if teeny, tiny bursts of electricity are related to a good idea, would a neuron producing slightly more produce a better idea?
Back to metaphorical electricity, do you have enough? Do your employees have enough? Before you answer, ask yourself if you are a reliable observer. How would you know if you don’t have enough? If a ruler was alive, it would be confident that it was 12 inches. I’m sure we all think we can power through just about anything.
Let’s use the metaphor of an electric car. We measure performance by what happents after we press the gas. Similarly, too often, our work environments and our own thoughts lead us to focus on having bigger motors and getting more done. Let’s shift our focus to not only having more electricity to power the motor, but making sure that electricity is delivered in the right amount at the right time.
How do up fill your metaphorical capacitor and charge your metaphorical batteries, and how do you fill the capacitors and charge the batteries of your employees? It’s more than just the reflexive answer of a vacation or day off from work. What are you doing with that time? As much as relaxation leads to good ideas, good ideas lead to relaxation. Charging a battery isn’t necessarily easy. Don’t believe me, ever felt your phone’s adaptor? Isn’t it warm? Taking a day off can be stressful. Even asking for it can cause dread in some employees. Carving out time for yourself and protecting that time against things that would steal it is stressful. So here is another sophism, imagine a frictionless way to recharge yourself. If you can’t imagine it, Then I’m not sure you will ever have it. Pretty challenging thought. Did you feel a bit warm, a bit anxious at the implied idea that if you can’t think it, then you might not have it? That’s OK. Work with it, just like you might have to work to recharge yourself. Energy isn’t free.
If you are a manager, can you increase capacity in yourself and in your employees to not only get more done, can you increase capacity to fill your capacity? It would be an amazing positive loop if your employees could not only charge their batteries easily and frequently but could give off their stored energy in the right amount at the right time.
Take Away: Make time. Seven minutes, three times this week. But, DO NOT get into an alpha state and then think of the sophism. That is focusing on the ‘after.’ Focus on the thoughts and feelings that bring you into an alpha state. Whatever happens after and where that mental electricity goes might just surprise you.
Spreading the Thoughts: Ask your coworkers how they charge their batteries. Ask quite a few people. Create a list. Please share what you find in the reply or comments section.
Next Post: Muscular Bag of Acid
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