People often come up with their bestideas

when time is tight-at least thafs what

many executives assume. The trouble is}

as new research reveals} it's not true.

reativitUnder the-Cun

RULY BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS rarely hatch over­night. Consider, for example, Charles Darwin'stheory of evolution, which had a protracted evo­

lution of its own. Darwin spent decades reading scientificliterature, making voyages on the HMS Beagle to theGalapagos and other exotic destinations, carrying outpainstakingly detailed observations, and producing thou­sands of pages of notes on those observations and his ideasfor explaining them. I1's inconceivable that his break­through would have occurred if he'd tried to rush it. lnbusiness, too, there are striking examples of the value ofhaving relatively unstructured, unpressured time to cre­ateand develop new ideas. Scientists working at AT&T'slegendary Bell Labs, operating under its corporate philos­ophy that big ide as take time, produced world-changinginnovations including the transistor and the laser beam.Their ingenuity earned the researchers several Nobelprizes. They, like Darwin, had the time to think creatively.

But we can aIl point to examples where creativityseemed to be sparked by extreme time pressure. ln 1970,during Apollo 13's flight to the moon, a crippling explo­sion occurred on board, damaging the air filtration systemand leading to a dangerous buildup of carbon dioxide inthe cabin. If the system could not be fixed or replaced, theastronauts would be dead within a few hours. Back at

NASA mission control in Houston, virtuaIly all engineers,scientists, and technicians immediately focused their at­tention on the problem. Working with a set ofmaterials

identical to those on board the spacecraft, they desper­ately tried to build a filtration system that the astronautsmight be able to replicate. Every conceivable material wasconsidered, including the coyer of a flight procedure man­ual. With little time to spare, they came up with some­thing that was ugly, inelegant, and far from perfect butthat seemed like it just might do the job. The engineersquickly conveyed the design with enough clarity that thecognitively impaired astronauts were, almost unbeliev­ably, able to build the filter. It worked, and three liveswere saved.

The business examples of creativity under pressure aredecidedly less dramatic than that, but they abound asweIl. The lauded design firm Ideo has put its innovativespin on personal computers, medical equipment, auto­motive electronics, toys, and even animatronic movie ro­bots - and many of the new designs for those productswere drawn up in three months or less. If you're like mostmanagers, you have almost certainly worked with peoplewho swear that they do their most creative work undertight deadIines. You may use pressure as a managementtechnique, beIieving that it will spur people onto greatleaps of insight. You may even manage yourself this way.If so, are you right?

Based on our research, the short answer is "no?' Whencreativity is under the gun, it usually ends up gettingkilled. Although time pressure may drive people to workmore and get more done, and may even make themfeel

52

by Teresa M. Amabile, Constance N. Hadley, and Steven J. Kramer

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Creativity Under the Gun

more creative, it actualIy causes them, in general, to thinkless creatively. Of course, the short answer is not thewhole story. Let's take a look at what time pressure is, howit feels when people experience it at work, and the differ­ent ways it can be managed to enhance creativity.

Fightingthe ClockMaria was a software developer on a team charged withcreating an on-line system through which health careproviders could access vital information about certainhigh-risk patients. It was critical that the new system beerror-proof because the targeted patients were elderlyor severely disabled individu aIs; in life-threatening sit­uations, accurate information about them had to becommunicated instantly. Unfortunately, the original con­tract for the project had vastly underestimated the timerequired to develop it. As a result, Maria and her teamfound themselves under extreme time pressure as thedeadIine approached. (Maria's identity, like all individual,project, and corporate identities in this artide, has beendisguised.)

The team was working a1most around the dock, eventhough it was becoming c1earer with each passing daythat the complex technical problems it encountered sim­ply could not be solved adequately within the originaltime frame. Yet senior management, as weIl as the projectleader, pressed the team to me et the deadIine, no matterwhat. Maria recorded her experiences during this time ina daily diary:

''At 7:30 this moming, my team leader asked me whatmy game plan was for the day and if 1could be availablefor a roI1out meeting. 1 wrote out on a flip chart what 1thought needed to be done today, looked at the list, andtold him it was two or three days of work. Now, as 1 ambumed out and preparing to leave for the day, 1 look atthe flip chart and realize that, at best, 20% of the work hasbeen accomplished. This one-day list is really a four- orfive-day list. The thing that most sticks in my mind fromthe entire day is that blasted flip chart with so littlecrossed 0[[:'

A few days later, Maria seemed even c10ser to the endofher rope:

"1 told my supervisor that the hours 1 am working arecompletely unacceptable and that 1planned to leave thecompany if this continued to be the norm on projects

Teresa M. Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor ofBusiness Administration at Harvard Business School in

Boston. Constance N. Hadley is a doctoral student in orga­nizational behavior at Harvard Business School. Steven J.Kramer is an independent researcher and writer based inWayland, Massachusetts.

54

here. The look on his face was a bit aghast. Was he reallyshocked? Could this possibly be a surprise? AlI aftemoon1felt physicalIy drained, as if 1were running on low bloodsugar. 1 slept very poorly last night, several hours awakein the middle of the night. 1 feel physicalIy exhaustedagain right now-Iack of mental cIarity, lack of motivationabout the project?'

Maria wasn't alone in her sense of the extreme time

pressure the group was working under. Richard, anothermember of the te am, kept his own diary during this pe­riod and had this to say:

"The team leader announced that the project's corehours-when everyone is expected to be in the office andworking - have been extended: 'They are now 8 AM to7 PM, and don't make social plans for the next threeweekends, as we will likely be working: This project isnow officialIy a death march in my mind. 1 can't fathomhow much work we have left, how severely we under­estimated this project, and how complex this dog hasbecome. At every tum, we uncover more things that areunsettled, incomplete, or way more complex than we everthought?'

We colIected more than 9,000 such diary entries in arecent study of 177 employees in seven U.S. companies.Our objective was to look deeply at how people experi­enced time pressure day to day as they worked on projectsthat required high levels of inventiveness, while also mea­suring their ability to think creatively under such pres­sure. Specifically, we asked each ofthe participants-mostof whom were highly educated knowledge workers - tocomplete a diary form on-line in which they rated severalaspects of their work and their work environment thatday, including how much time pressure they feIt. ln a sep­arate section of the form, we also asked them to describesomething that stood out in their minds about that day,and we carefully analyzed those short entries for evidenceof creative thinking. (See the sidebar "Trapping Creativ­ity in the Wild" for a detailed description of our researchmethod, including our study's specifie definition of"cre­ative thinking:')

What we saw in those diary entries was both fascinatingand sobering. Many of the people in our study reported ex­periences similar to Maria's: They often felt overworked,fragmented, and bumed out. At the most basic level, then,we found support for recent observations in the popularpress that Americans are feeling a time crunch at work,creating what one Newsweek reporter called a nation of"the quick, or the dead-tired:' The problem has been withus for sorne time. As early as 1995, US. News & World Re­port described a nationwide polI showing that niore thanhalf of Americans wanted more free time, even if it meantearning less money. And in 1996, according to a Wall Street

Journal-NBC News survey, 75% of those people earning

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Creativity Under the Gun

Many ofthe findings we report in

this article are drawn from a study of

time pressure and creativity that we

recently conducted with Jennifer

Mueller of Yale School of Manage­

ment and William Simpson and Lee

Fleming, both of Harvard Business

School. That study included data from

177 employees who were members

of 22 project teams from seven U.S.

companies within three industries

(chemical, high tech, and consumer

products). More than 85% of the par­

ticipants had college degrees, and

many had graduate education. ln

order to be included in the study, a

team had to be identified by senior

management as working on a project

where creativity was both possible

and desirable.ln other words, these

projects, and our participants, were

considered the "creative lifeblood"

oftheir organizations. We believed

that we could better understand

what these people were experienc­

ing each day, and what was really

influencing their creativity, ifwe

tracked what was happening in

real time.

To accomplish this, we e-mailed

each member of each team a brief

daily questionnaire throughout the

entire course oftheir projects. We

asked them to fi" it out and return

it to us at the end of each workday.

Somewhat amazingly, 75% of the

questionnaires that we sent out

were returned completed even

thoug h some of the projects we fol­

lowed lasted more than six months.

This yielded the very high number

of returns (9,134) that we analyzed in

this study. The questionnaires con­

tained several numerical-scale items

about the work and the work environ-

THE INNOVATIVE ENTER PRISE AUGUST 2002

ment, including one that asked partic­

ipants to rate the day's time pressure

on a seven-point scale. A similar item

asked them to rate the creativity of

their work that day.

The most interesting part of the

questionnaire was the narrative

diary entry, in which we asked par­

ticipants to briefly describe one event

that stood out in their minds from

the day-anything at ail that related

to the project, the team, or their work.

(We did not ask them to focus on cre­

ativity.) Because we asked for just one

standout event each day, the dia ries do

not present a comprehensive account

of everything that happened that day.

We assume, though, that they are a

representative sample of the impor­

tant things that were happening. And

although we saw some clear patterns

in the results, further research will be

necessary to determine definitively

what is causing what.

The diary entries provided rich in­

formation about what people were

doing and experiencing each day. We

derived a "creative thinking" measure

by coding each diary narrative. A

narrative was considered to have evi­

dence of creative thinking if it de­

scribed an event in which the person

was engaged in any form of creative

thinking as the term is used in every­

day language; this included mentions

of discovery, brainstorming, generat­

ing ideas, thinking flexibly, or "being

creative:' We also included many of

the cognitive processes that theorists

believe are important in facilitating

creative thinking: learning, insight,

realization, awareness, clarification,

remembering, and focused concen­

tration. Ali of these processes are

included in what we cali "creative

thinking:"'thinking creatively:' or

"creativity" in this article. (For more

details on the methods and findings

of our research, see the working

paper byTeresa M.Amabile,Jennifer

M. Mueller, William B. Simpson, Con­

stance N. Hadley, Steven J. Kramer,

and Lee Fleming, "Time Pressure and

Creativity in Organizations: A Longi­

tudinal Field Study;' H BS, 2002.)

ln preparing this article, we went

beyond the statistical analyses of the

time-pressure studyto develop a

ri cher view of the conditions under

which time pressure mayor may not

have negative effects. For that pur­

pose, we looked at four extreme condi­

tions: days ofvery high time pressure

when creative thinking did happen;

days ofvery high time pressure when

creative thinking didn't happen; days

ofvery low time pressure when cre­

ative thinking did happen; and days

ofvery low time pressure when cre­

ative thinking didn't happen. We took

a sample ohoo diary entries from

each ofthese four work conditions

and read them ca refulIy to discern pat­

terns that distinguished them from

one another-for instance, that creativ­

ity seemed more likely when people

were able to focus on a single activity

for most of the day.

ln addition to that qualitative analy­

sis, we used the numerical ratings that

the participants reported in the ques­

tionnaires to examine the number of

hours they worked; the degree of chal­

lenge, involvement, and time pressure

they felt; the number of people they

worked with; and the degree of dis­

traction they felt. The results of our

analyses are summarized in the ex­

hibit "The Time-Pressure/Creativity

M atrix:'

55

Creativity Under the Gun

more than $100,000 a year cited managing their time as

a bigger problem than managing their money.

Time pressure has become a fact oflife for the American

worker. On the average day, our study participants re­

ported feeling "moderate"time pressure-and that was the

average. A great many of the participants' workdays were

characterized by "extremely" high levels oftime pressure.

"Today 1 realized that our time to get ready for the up­

coming presentations was almost nonexistent;' wrote one

participant in a fairly typicaI entry. Another, in a different

company, lamented that, "Overnight, 1 had to come up

with a fully detailed plan for the remainder of the devel­

opment phase, to let us know how far behind we were?'

Perhaps not surprisingly, although our participants

said time pressure was rather high most of the time, we

noticed a trend whereby time pressure seemed to build as

work projects went from early to later stages; as with

Maria's project, people felt more and more pressed for

The Time-Pressure/Creativity MatrixTime PressureOur study suggests that time

pressure affects creativity in

different ways dependingon whether the environment

allows people to focus on

their work, conveys a sense

of meaningful urgency about

the tasks at ha nd, or stimu­lates or undermines creative

thinking in other ways.

likelihoodof Creative

Thinking

56

high

low

low

Creative thinking under low timepressure is more Iikely when peoplefeel as ifthey are on an expedition.They:

• show creative thinking that is moreoriented toward generating or explor­ing ideas than identifying problems.

• tend to collaborate with one personrather than with a group.

Creative thinking under low timepressure is unlikely when people feelas ifthey are on autopilotThey:

• receive little encouragement Fromsenior management to be creative.

• tend to have more meetings anddiscussions with groups rather thanwith individuals.

• engage in less collaborative workoverall.

high

Creative thinking under extreme timepressure is more likely when peoplefeel as ifthey are on a mission. They:

• can foeus on one activity for a signifi­cant part of the day because they areundisturbed or protected.

• believe that they are doing importantwork and report feeling positivelychallenged by and involved in thework.

• show creative thinking that is equallyoriented toward identifying problemsand generating or exploring ideas.

Creative thinking under extreme timepressure is unlikely when people feelas ifthey are on a treadmill. They:

• feel d istracted.

• experience a highly fragmented work­day, with many different activities.

• don't get the sense that the work theyare doing is important.

• Fee' more pressed for time than whenthey are "on a mission" even thoughthey work the same number of hours.

• tend to have more meetings and dis­cussions with groups rather than withindividuals.

• experience lots oflast-minutechanges in their plans and schedules.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

time as deadlines approached. Interestingly, we also ob­served a slight trend in time-pressure changes du ring theweek: The time pressure started out relatively low onMondays, increased through the week to a peak on Thurs­days, and decreased on Fridays. This may be because man­agers' expectations for productivity are somewhat loweron Mondays and Fridays. Or perhaps it's simply that, onthe days bracketing the weekend, people are already (orstill) in a weekend mind-set and less subject to feeling thetime pressure that exists. We also found that people weremore likely to report high levels of time pressure on dayswhen they were traveling for work or working off-site. It'spossible that people try to pack more work into such daysto minimize the total time spent away from the office.And, of course, the many hassles of travel itself undoubt­edly contribute to feelings ofbeing pressed.

Energyand FrustrationAs described in the diaries, the days when our study par­ticipants felt extreme time pressure were noticeably dif­ferent from the days wh en they felt less time pressure.People tended to work more hours and were involved ina greater number of activities, having to switch gearsmore often, on time-pressured days. That provides us withour first clue about how time pressure might affect cre­ativity-a clue to which we will retum later.

People experienced different feelings as time pressureincreased, but we can't simply say that they felt better orworse. It was a mixed bag. At first, people felt more involvedin and challenged by their work: "1am under a lot of pres­sure to start up the manufacturing machine for our newproduct this week ... .I was actually happy to run to thehardware stores for hose fittings and bolts. For the firsttime,I feellike we are truly making real progress:' And, insurprising contrast to Maria's reaction offeeling drained,people generally felt more energized under high pressure.As one diarist reported, "We are three-quarters of the waythere! 1really enjoy seeing the team pull together:'

But sorne people also experienced deep frustration astime pressure increased: "1frequently feel 1am swimmingupstream on this project and always buried with work:' lnparticular, they seemed frustrated by constant distrac­tions from other team members on time-pressured days.One of our study participants told a particularly vividstory about his frustration with a colleague:

"We had a meeting about what is going wrong with thefiltration program and how to come to an acceptable levelof understanding and information gathering. As usual,Paul, Emilio, Sarah, and I were going at breakneck speedtrying to make sure we're aIl pulling together. But Rajcould only repeatedly say, 'But what part of my job don'tyou want me to do, if you expect me to do that?' He was

THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE AUGUST 2002

Creativity Under the Gun

argumentative and negative, and all 1 could think was,'Stop it!' I was able to control myself and didn't scream athim, but I was close:'

When we look at the whole picture ofhow people wereexperiencing time pressure, it seems they were workinghard, spending long hours on the job, and sometimes feel­ing jazzed about what they were doing. But at the sametime, there was a lot offrustration-another clue that will

help us understand time pressure's effects on creativity.

The Pressure TrapOur study indicates that the more time pressure peoplefeel on a given day, the less likely they will be to thinkcreatively. Surprisingly, though, people seem to be largelyunaware of this phenomenon. ln their assessments oftheir own creativity each day, the participants in ourstudy generally perceived themselves as having beenmore creative when time pressure was high. Sadly, theirdiaries gave the lie to those self-assessments. There wasclearly less and less creative thinking in evidence as timepressure increased.

Moreover, the drop in creative thinking was most ap­parent when time pressure was at its worst. ln the dailydiary form, participants were asked to rate the time pres­sure they felt on a scale of one to seven, with seven beingthe highest level of pressure. On the days rated a seven,people were 45% less likely to think creatively than theywere on any of the lower-pressure days.

Managers might think that the occasional uncreativeday is simply the price paid for keeping work on a highlyproductive schedule. If your creative juices freeze up ona particularly busy Thursday, they might argue, you'll beable to get back to creativity on Friday when the demandshave died down a bit. But maybe not. To our surprise,more time pressure on a certain day meant less creativethinking that day, the next day, and the day after that. lnother words, whether because of exhaustion or enduringpostpressure cognitive paralysis, our study participantsseemed to experience a "pressure hangover" that lasteda couple of days at least.

That linge ring time-pressure effect showed up whetherwe examined time pressure day to day or over longerperiods. The higher the overall sense of time pressure thatparticipants felt during the first week of their projects, thelower the level of creative thinking we saw from themduring the first half of their projects (a period that variedfrom three weeks to four months). And the higher theove raIl sense of time pressure at the midpoint, the lowerthe level of creative thinking in the second half.

Why does time pressure have this dampening effect oncreativity? Psychological research over the past 30 years,along with theories about how creativity happens, can

S7

Creativity Under the Gun

A Peel{ intothe Diaries

These diary excerpts

were written by study

participants who experi­

enced the four work

conditions described in

this article. See ifyou or

your employees might

say something similar

about experiences in

your own organization.

On a Mission

(High Time Pressure,High Likelihoodof Creative Thinking)

"At the end of the day today, after getting

the documents ready, it hit me as to how

creative Katherine and 1had been ta­

gether when we had worked in a room,

away from the telephones, noise, interrup­

tions, and other distractions. 1felt very

satisfied with the work we produced:'

"Just as 1was knee-deep in 1s and Os,

staring at an execution trace of the

firmware (which was acting strangely),

1got three phone calls in a row. 1was

about ready to throw the damn phone

across the room. Fortu nately, it stopped

ringing after that, and 1was able to

refocus and find the problem. Hooray:'

"We found out today that the drop test on

one of our products was not done prop­

er/y, and we needed a way to pad our

product in a rush. 1 remembered that we

had $10 million worth of an obsolete cell

cushion that we were getting ready to

write off, and 1suggested we use that.

It worked great!"

"1 brought in some of my personal camera

equipment today and used it to create a

high-magnification video analysis sys­

tem ... 1feltthis was very creative work on

my part-passing on my knowledge of op­

tics and photography to an engineer whowill continue with this work:'

On an Expedition(Low Time Pressure,High Likelihoodof Creative Thinking)

"ln my meeting with Seth to discuss

the imaging model, several ideas he

mentioned meshed with ideas 1had,

and 1came away with a better andmore detailed model:'

"Wendy brought in her samples of the

1LP films and presented them to me in

a way that really made sense and trig­

gered a lot of good ideas on myend:'

"John spent time discussing promotional

opportunities with me, and 1felt like 1

was really learning something:'

"1 tried out my patterned adhesive wine

labels in the lab. Bought wine at the

grocery store and committed sacrilege

by pou ring it into the sink. My pat­

terned adhesive didn't really work weil,

but 1made some interesting observa­

tions that helped me understand the

problem a little better:'

"While brainstorming ideas for solving

the axle retention problem, 1discovered

a way to reduce the cost of our current

wheeled container. ln addition, this may

give us a better product that is easier

to produce. 1made a few calls to begin

investigating the feasibility:'

help to explain. Psychologists have long believed that cre­ativity results from the formation of a large number of as­sociations in the mind, followed by the selection of asso­ciations that may be particularly interesting and useful. lna sense, it's as if the mind is throwing a bunch of balls intothe cognitive space, juggling them around until they col­lide in interesting ways. The process has a certain playfulquality to it; in fact, Einstein once referred to creativity as"combinatorial play?' If associations are made betweenconcepts that are rarely combined - that is, if balls thatdon't normally come near one another collide - the ulti­mate novelty of the solution will be greater.

Considerable research, drawn from experiments andfrom observations of creative activities, supports this view

58

of the creative process. And sorne recent research sug­gests that the success of the combinatorial process de­pends both on having sufficient time to create the balls to .juggle-exploring concepts and learning things that mightsomehow be useful- and having sufficient time to devoteto the actual juggling. For example, one study we and ourcolleagues conducted found that people who allocatemore time to exploratory behaviors while doing a taskproduce work that is rated by experts as more creative.Another study found that simply having a few minutes tothink through a task - studying the materials, playingaround with them-can lead to more creativity than havingto dive into the task cold. 50 we have still more cIues about

how being under the gun might affect the creative process.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Creativity Under the Gun

Even though time pressure seems to undermine creativethinking in general, there are striking exceptions. Weknow, from our own study and from anecdotal evidence,that people can and do come up with ingenious solutionsunder desperately short time frames. What makes the dif­ference? It's time to put the dues together.

When we compared the diary entries from the time­pressured days when creative thinking happened ta theentries from the time-pressured days when no creativethinkinghappened, we found that the creative days fea­tured a particular-and rather rare-set ofworking condi­tions. Above aIl else, these days were marked by a sense

"Overall feeling of depression

today:'

"Mostly just doing paperwork.

1cleaned up a lot of outstandingitems:'

On Autopi lot(Low Time Pressure,Low Likelihood

of Creative Thinking)

of focus" People were able ta con­centrate on a single work activity fora significant portion of the day. Asone diarist jubilantly declared: "Theevent of the day was that 1 had nostandout events. 1 was able ta con­centrate on the project at hand with­out interruptions:' This focus wasoften hard-won, as the individuals ortheir managers went to great lengthsta protect their work from interrup-tions and other disturbances: "Therewere sa many interruptions for chit­chat that 1 couldn't get any decentwork accomplished. 1eventually hadto go work very quietly in anotherroom to get sorne of it done:'

Indeed, this sense of focus impliessorne degree of isolation. On thetime-pressured days that still yieldedcreative thinking, we noted that col­laboration was limited. When it hap­pene d, it was somewhat more likelyto be done in a concentrated way-forinstance, working with another indi­vidual rather than in a group: "1hada chance ta talk at the end of the daywith Susan. She helped confirm thatthe path 1was taking was right andhelped me figure out sorne of the dif­ferences in the codes. Her help willkeep me going:'

Another key condition for achiev­ing creativity on the high-pressuredays was interpreting the time pres­sure as meaningful urgency. Peopleunderstood why solving a problem orcompleting a job was crucial, andthey bought into that urgency, feel-

ing as though they were on a mission. (See the exhibit"The Time-Pressure/Creativity Matrix" for a summary ofthe work conditions our study participants experienced.)They were involved in their work and felt positively chal­lenged by it. The sense ofurgency and the ability to focusare probably related, for two reasons. If people believethat their work is vitally important, they may be morewilling and able to ignore a variety of distractions intheir workdays. Meanwhile, managers who share thissense of urgency may free people from less-essentialtasks. This was clearly the case in the Apollo 13 mission:AlI nonessential work was abandoned until the air fil­tration problem was solved and the astronauts were re­tumed home safely.

"Very low energy today. Must be

the weather, but 1feel whipped.

Focused on organizing and plan­

ning. Put out an agenda for the

optimization meeting tomorrow:'

"The team had an all-day meeting

with the general manager. He just

raised three questions, rather

than giving us a clear leadership

response to what we've done:'

"Today 1gave a two-hour presenta­

tion on product strategy and

plans for the new product launch

to our European marketing man­

agers. 1was disappointed by their

[apathetic] response. The same

old issues came up and a moder­

ately negative attitude prevailed:'

"1 spent the day trying to get a business

plan tinished-or at least started-

for this strategie alliance. 1was very

frustrated by consta nt interru ptions,

which make it necessary to get this

type of work done before or afterhou rs:'

"Today was a very long day spent in

several meetings. We spend so much

time covering old issues instead of

driving the business forward:'

On a Treadmill

(High Time Pressure,Low Likelihood

of Creative Thinking)

"1 was informed that 1have to come

up with a new launch rationale by

Monday so it can be reviewed by the

operating team. The relaunching

of the old printers is devoid ofany

logical strategy. Now 1have to make

up one that sounds good:'

"One problem after another occurred

today.1 had intended to complete

several different items for the product

transfer, but 1spent the day tightingfires instead:'

Protecti ng Creativity

THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE AUGUST 2002 59

Creativity Under the Gun

Don't bejooled into thinking that time pressure

will, in itselj, spur creativity. That's a powerful

illusion but an illusion nonetheless.

But when this protected focus was missing on time­pressured days - and it very often was - people felt morelike they were on a treadmill. On these days, our diaristsreported a more extreme Jevel of time pressure eventhough they were not working more hours, and they feltmuch more distracted. Wh en recording the number ofdifferent activities they performed, they were likely to usewords like "several:' "many:' and "too numeraus to coune'They were pulled in too many directions, un able to focuson a single activity for any significant period of time. Onediarist, paraphrasing the oft-repeated lament, said: "Thefaster 1run, the behinder 1get:'

Our first clue, that people might have to switch gearsmore often under time pressure, underlies this treadmillcondition; many things are clamoring for people's atten­tion simultaneously. Remember, too, our clue that feel­ings of time pressure are associated with frustration, es­pecially frustration with other members of a team. Wesuspect that interruptions contribute to that frustration.Other evidence adds to the picture of a distracted, dis­turbed, confusing environment on treadmill days. Peoplehad many more meetings and discussions with groupsrather than with individuals. Moreover, they often had tocope with last-minute changes to schedules and plans. lnmany ways, they seemed to be operating under greateruncertainty: "At the meeting, we discovered that the workwe have done to date may have to be completely redonebecause of a decision made by upper management tochange the way the new system will pracess customer or­ders:' On these low-focus, time-pressured days, peopleweren't very likely to see what they were doing as impor­tant or to feel a meaningful sense ofurgency to completea project or task.

Did an absence of time pressure guarantee that peoplewould be more creative? Certainly not. Under any level of

time pressure, low or high, reports of creative thinkingwere relatively rare; they showed up in only about 5%ofthe 9,00o-plus daily diary reports. Under low time pres­sure, the differences in whether creativity happened ornot seem to lie in the way people were spending theirdays. Most noticeably, when people exhibited creativityin the absence of time pressure, they were more oriented

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toward exploring and generating new ideas than identi­fying problems to be solved. (Remember our clue fromthe psychologicalliterature on combinatorial play.) Peo­ple behaved as ifthey were on an expedition. ln addition,if people in this condition worked with someone else,they tended to spend the day (or part of it) collaboratingwith only one other person; collaboration with many peo­ple was rare. Having a single focal point to bounce newideas off of might help people stay oriented toward thework on these more relaxed days, in contrast to havingmany "playmates" at once.

Finally, of course, there were days when people didn'tfeel under much time pressure and didn't show any evi­dence of creative thinking. They seemed to be doing theirjobs, putting one foot in front of the other, without en­gaging too deeply in what was happening. They behavedas though they were on autopilot. On these days, there wasa generally low level of collaborative work, althoughthere were more meetings and discussions that involvedgroups rather than individuals. And people felt the leastencouragement from high-Ievel management to do cre­ative work. Perhaps if creativity had been encouragedmore, these individu aIs would have made better use oftheir relatively low-pressure days.

Lessons for Management­and Self-ManagementOur research focused on knowledge workers - peoplewho, according to researcher Leslie Perlow, are mostlikely to suffer from a "time famine" in contemporaryAmerican organizations. These are the people fromwhom we need and expect the highest levels of creativity;they are developing the products, services, and organiza­tions of tomorrow. They are also the people who are most

handicapped in their quest to be creative.There's no doubt that creative thinking is possi­

ble under high - even extreme - time pressure. Butthis seems to be likely only in a situation that, re­search suggests, is not the norm in modem organi­zations: being able to become deeply immersed, andstay deeply immersed, in an important, urgent prob­lem. Given the demands in most organizations forcommunication and process checks, as weIl as theprevalence of highly interdependent work raIes,protected creativity time does not occur naturally.

What, then, can managers do to minimize the negativeeffects of time pressure and use it apprapriately in the ser­vice of creativity? What can each of us do to maintain ourown creativity in today's pressured organizations?

Our fust suggestion is the obvious one: Avoid extremetime pressure whenever possible, particularly if you are

looking for high levels of learning, exploration, ide a gen-

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Creativity Under the Gun

Signing a contract that promises to deliver items

to a client by a certain date, without careful

scoping ofwhat the project willlikely involve,

can lead to the treadmill mentality.

eration, and experimentation with new concepts. Don'tbe fooled into thinking that time pressure will, in itself,spur creativity. That's a powerful illusion but an illusionnonetheless. Complex cognitive processing takes time,and, without sorne reasonable time for that processing,creativity is almost impossible.

Of course, it would be foolish to think that the ideal forcreativity is a complete absence of time pressure on aparticular work project. Given the demands that mod­ern life puts on people, it's too likely that other thingswould steal attention from the project - the ur-gent would drive out the important-and nothingwould be accompli shed. Moreover, it would beeasy for people to slip into autopilot mode if therewere no sense of urgency. Our research suggeststhat low time pressure doesn't necessarily fostercreative thinking-but that it can do so when peo­ple are encouraged to learn, to play with ide as,and to develop something truly new. Consider thecreativity-shielding practices at 3M. For manyyears, that innovation powerhouse has had a tra-dition of protecting 15%of the workweek for cre-ative endeavors. All its R&D scientists devote that

time to exploring whatever new ide as or pet projects mostintrigue them personally, even if those ideas and projectsare far afield from their assigned worle

For most companies, the best way to avoid undue timepressure is to articulate goals at allievels of the organi­zation that are realistic and carefully planned, avoidingthe optimism bias that plagues a lot of corporate plan­ning. Announcing that a certain number of new productswill be developed in the coming year, without a sense ofthe feasibility of that goal, will probably cause extremetime pressure to ripple through the organization - rightdown to the people who are actually supposed to be com­ing up with the ideas for those products. Signing a con­tract that promises to deliver items to a client by a certaindate, without careful scoping of what the project willlikely involve, can lead to the treadmill mentality that wesaw on Marie's team. People may continue to advancethe work, but they won't have the creative insights thatwill send the project leapfrogging ahead to truly excitingsolutions.

ln situations where time pressure can't be avoided,managers should focus on protecting time-pressured peo­ple who are supposed ta be doing creative work from in­terruptions, distractions, and unrelated demands for a sig­nificant portion of each workweek. This concentration on<Creaiwork" can reduce the time fragmentation that wesaw in so many of our participants' daily diaries.

Perlow's research in a high-tech firm, as reported inher book Finding rime: How Corporations, lndividuals, andFamilies Can Benefit from New Work Practices (Cornell

TLI~ II\JI\J""VATIVF FNTFRPRISE AUGUST 2002

University Press, 1997), showed that engineers who agreedto give one another such uninterrupted quiet time duringspecified periods each day were able to get more done ontheir projects and felt better about their workdays. Ber re­search also suggested, unfortunately, that it is difficult tosustain such a major change in workday norms withoutdeep cultural change in the organization.

Creativity can also be supported under time-pressuredconditions if managers can help people understand whytight time frames are necessary. It's much easier to feel

that you are on a mission if you accept that there is an im­portant, urgent need for the work you are doing, ratherthan feeling that an arbitrary deadline has been handeddown simply to make you run ever faster on your tread­mill. Our research suggests that managers should also en­courage one-on-one collaborations and discussions, avoid­ing an excess of the obligatory group meetings that maycontribute to feelings of fragmentation and wasted time.Finally, people may be better able to concentrate on theirwork if managers minimize abrupt changes in scheduledactivities and plans.

ln short, the key to protecting creative activity-includingyour own - is to offset the effects of extreme time pres­sure. The obvious way to do that is to reduce the timepressure. But in cases where it is unavoidable, its negativeeffects can be softened somewhat by getting your peopleand yourself in the mi nd-set of being on a mission - shar­ing a sense that the work is vital and the urgency legiti­mate. It also means ruthlessly guarding protected blocksof the workweek, shielding stafffrom the distractions andinterruptions that are the normal condition of organiza­tional life. The best situation for creativity is not to beunder the gun. But if you can't manage that, at least learnto dodge the bullets. \7

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