people often come up with their best ideas creativityweb.mit.edu/monicaru/public/old stuff/for...

People often come up with their best ideas

when time is tight-at least thafs what

many executives assume. The trouble /s,

as new research reveals, it's not true.

CreativityUnder the G

TRULY BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS tarely hatch over-night. 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 thou-sands of pages of notes on those observations and his ideasfor explaining them. It's inconceivable that his break-through would have occurred if he'd tried to rush it. Inbusiness, too, there are striking examples ofthe value ofhaving relatively unstructured, unpressured time to cre-ate and develop new ideas. Scientists working at AT&T'slegendary Bell Labs, operating under its corporate philos-ophy that big ideas 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 all point to examples where creativityseemed to be sparked by extreme time pressure. In 1970,during Apollo 13's flight to the moon, a crippling explo-sion 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 atNASA mission control in Houston, virtually all engineers,scientists, and technicians immediately focused their at-tention on the problem. Working with a set of materials

identical to those on board the spacecraft, they desper-ately tried to build a filtration system that the astronautsmight be able to replicate. Every conceivable material wasconsidered, including the cover of afiight procedure man-ual. With little time to spare, they came up with some-thing that was ugly, inelegant, and far from perfect butthat seemed like it just might do tbe job. The engineersquickly conveyed the design with enough clarity that thecognitively impaired astronauts were, almost unbeliev-ably, 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 aswell. The lauded design firm Tdeo has put its innovativespin on personal computers, medical equipment, auto-motive electronics, toys, and even animatronic movie ro-bots - 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 deadlines. You may use pressure as a managementtechnique, believing that it will spur people on to 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 them/ee/

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

52 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Creativity Under the Gun

more creative, it actually 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 differ-ent ways it can be managed to enhance creativity.

Fighting the 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 individuals; in life-threatening sit-uations, accurate information about them had to becommunicated instantly. Unfortunately, the original con-tract for the project had vastly underestimated the timerequired to develop it. As a result, Maria and her teamfound themselves under extreme time pressure as thedeadline approached. (Maria's identity, like all individual,project, and corporate identities in this article, has beendisguised.)

The team was working almost around the clock, eventhough it was becoming clearer with each passing daythat the complex technical problems it encountered sim-ply could not be solved adequately within the originaltime frame. Yet senior management, as well as the projectleader, pressed the team to meet the deadline, 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 I could be availablefor a rollout meeting. I wrote out on a flip chart what Ithought needed to be done today, looked at the list, andtold him it was two or three days of work. Now, as I amburned out and preparing to leave for the day, I look atthe flip chart and realize that, at best, 20% ofthe work hasbeen accomphshed. 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 off."

A few days later, Maria seemed even closer to the endof her rope:

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

Teresa M. Amabile is the Edsei Bryant Ford Professor ofBusiness Administration at Harvard Business School inBoston. Constance N. Hadley is a doctoral student in orga-nizational behavior at Harvard Business School. Steven J.Kramer is an independent researcher and writer based inWayland, Massachusetts.

here. The look on his face was a bit aghast. Was he reallyshocked? Could this possibly be a surprise? All afternoonI felt physically drained, as if I were running on low hloodsugar. I slept very poorly last night, several hours awakein the middle of the night. I feel physically exhaustedagain right now-lack of mental clarity, lack of motivationabout the project."

Maria wasn't alone in her sense of the extreme timepressure the group was working under. Richard, anothermember of the team, kept his own diary during this pe-riod 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 officially a death march in my mind. I can't fathomhow much work we have left, how severely we under-estimated this project, and how complex this dog hasbecome. At every turn, we uncover more things that areunsettled, incomplete, or way more complex than we everthought."

We collected 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 experi-enced time pressure day to day as they worked on projectsthat required high levels of inventiveness, while also mea-suring their ability to think creatively under such pres-sure. Specifically, we asked each ofthe partic ipants-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 felt. In a sep-arate section ofthe 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 Creativ-ity in the Wild" for a detailed description of our researchmethod, including our study's specific definition of "cre-ative thinking.")

What we saw in those diary entries was both fascinatingand sobering. Many ofthe people in our study reported ex-periences similar to Maria's: They often felt overworked,fragmented, and burned 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 some time. As early as 1995, US. News & World Re-port described a nationwide poll showing that more thanhalf of Americans wanted more free time, even if it meantearning less money. And in 1996, according to a Wall StreetJournat~NBC News survey, 75% of those people earning



Trapping rreativity in the WildMany ofthe findings we report inthis article are drawn from a study oftime pressure and creativi^ that werecently conducted with JenniferMueller of Yale School of Manage-ment and William Simpson and LeeFleming, both of Harvard BusinessSchool. That study included data from177 employees who were membersof 22 project teams from seven U.S.companies within three industries(chemical, high tech, and consumerproducts). More than 85% ofthe par-ticipants had college degrees, andmany had graduate education. Inorder to be included in the study, ateam had to be identified by seniormanagement as working on a projectwhere creativity was both possibleand desirable. In other words, theseprojects, and our participants, wereconsidered the "creative lifeblood"oftheir organizations. We believedthat we could better understandwhat these people were experienc-ing each day, and what was reallyinfiuencing their creativity, if wetracked what was happening inrealtime.

To accomplish this, we e-mailedeach member of each team a briefdaily questionnaire throughout theentire course oftheir projects. Weasked them to fill it out and returnit to us at the end of each workday.Somewhat amazingly, 75% ofthequestionnaires that we sent outwere returned completed eventhough some ofthe projects we fol-lowed lasted more than six months.This yielded the very high numberof returns (9,134) that we analyzed inthis study. The questionnaires con-tained several numerical-scale itemsabout the work and the work environ-

ment, including one that asked partic-ipants to rate the day's time pressureon a seven-point scale. A similar itemasked them to rate the creativity oftheir work that day

The most interesting part ofthequestionnaire was the narrativediary entry, in which we asked par-ticipants to briefiy describe one eventthat stood out in their minds fromthe day-anything at all that relatedto the project, the team, or their work.(We did not ask them to focus on cre-ativity.) Because we asked for just onestandout event each day, the diaries donot present a comprehensive accountof everything that happened that dayWe assume, though, that they are arepresentative sample ofthe impor-tant things that were happening. Andalthough we saw some clear patternsin the results.further research will benecessary to determine definitivelywhat is causi ng what.

The diary entries provided rich in-formation about what people weredoing and experiencing each day. Wederived a "creative thinking" measureby coding each diary narrative. Anarrative was considered to have evi-dence of creative thinking if It de-scribed an event in which the personwas engaged in any form of creativethinking as the term is used in every-day language; this included mentionsofdiscovery,brainstorming, generat-ing ideas, thinking fiexibly, or "beingcreative." We also included many ofthe cognitive processes that theoristsbelieve are important in facilitatingcreative thinking: learning, insight,realization, awareness, clarification,remembering, and focused concen-tration. All of these processes areincluded in what we call "creative

thinking,""thinking creatively," or"creativity" in this article. (For moredetails on the methods and findingsof our research, see the workingpaper by Teresa M.Amabiie, JenniferM. Mueller, William B.Simpson,Con-stance N. Hadley, Steven J. Kramer,and Lee Fleming,"Time Pressure andCreativity in Organizations: A Longi-tudinal Field Study," HBS,2002.)

In preparing this article, we wentbeyond the statistical analyses ofthetime-pressure study to develop aricher view ofthe conditions underwhich time pressure may or may nothave negative efFects. For that pur-pose, we looked at four extreme condi-tions: days of very high time pressurewhen creative thinking did happen;days of very high time pressure whencreative thinking didn't happen; daysof very low time pressure when cre-ative thinking did happen; and daysof very low time pressure when cre-ative thinking didn't happen. We tooka sample of 100 diary entries fromeach of these four work conditionsand read them carefully to discern pat-terns that distinguished them fromone another-for instance, that creativ-ity seemed more likely when peoplewere able to focus on a single activilyfor most ofthe day.

In addition to that qualitative analy-sis, we used the numerical ratings thatthe participants reported in the ques-tionnaires to examine the number ofhours they worked; the degree of chal-lenge, involvement, and time pressurethey felt; the number of people theyvworked with; and the degree of dis-traction they felt. The results of ouranalyses are summarized in the ex-hibit "The Ti me-Pressu re/CreativityMatrix."

THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE AUGUST 2002 55


more than $uxi,cxx> a year cited managing their time asa bigger problem than managing their money.

Time pressure has become a fact of life for the Americanworker. On the average day, our study participants re-ported feeling"moderate"time pressure-and that was theaverage. A great many of the participants' workdays werecharacterized by "extremely" high levels of time pressure."Today I realized that our time to get ready for the up-coming presentations was almost nonexistent," wrote one

participant in a fairly typical entry. Another, in a differentcompany, lamented that, "Overnight, 1 had to come upwith a fully detailed plan for the remainder ofthe devel-opment phase, to let us know how far behind we were."

Perhaps not surprisingly, although our participantssaid time pressure was rather high most ofthe time, wenoticed a trend whereby time pressure seemed to build aswork projects went from early to later stages; as withMaria's project, people felt more and more pressed for

The Time-Pressure/Creativity MatrixOur study suggests that timepressure affects creativity indifferent ways dependingon whether the environmentallows people to focus ontheir work, conveys a senseof meaningful urgency aboutthe tasks at hand, or stimu-lates or undermines creativethinking in other ways.

Time Pressure

high

low

Creative thinking under low timepressure is more likely v̂ hen peoplefeel as if they are on an expedition.They:

• show creative thinking that Is moreoriented toward generating or explor-ing ideas than identifying problems.

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

high

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

• can focus on one activity for a signifi-cant part ofthe day because they areundisturbed or protected.

• believethatthey 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.

Likelihoodof CreativeThinking

low

Creative thinking under low timepressure is unlikely when people feelas if they are on autopilot They:

• receive little encouragement fromsenior management to be creative.

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

• engage in less collaborative workoverall.

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

• feel distracted.

• experience a highly fragmented work-day, with many different activities.

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

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

• tend to have more meetings and dis-cussions with groups rather than withindividuals.

• experience lots of last-minutechanges in their plans and schedules.



time as deadlines approached. Interestingly, we also ob-served a slight trend in time-pressure changes during theweek: The time pressure started out relatively low onMondays, increased through the week to a peak on Thurs-days, and decreased on Fridays. This may be because man-agers' 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 oftime 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 undoubt-edly contribute to feelings of being pressed.

Energy and FrustrationAs described in the diaries, the days when our study par-ticipants felt extreme time pressure were noticeably dif-ferent from the days when 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 cre-ativity-a clue to which we will return later.

People experienced different feelings as time pressureincreased, but we can't simply say that they felt better orworse, lt was a mixed bag. At first, people felt more involvedin and challenged by their work:"l am under a lot of pres-sure 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, 1 feel like we are truly making real progress." And, insurprising contrast to Maria's reaction of feeling drained,people generally felt more energized under high pressure.As one diarist reported,"We are three-quarters ofthe waythere! I really enjoy seeing the team pull together."

But some people also experienced deep frustration astime pressure increased; "I frequently feel I am swimmingupstream on this project and always buried with work." Inparticular, they seemed frustrated by constant distrac-tions 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 1 were going at breakneck speedtrying to make sure we're all 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

argumentative and negative, and al! I 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 of how people wereexperiencing time pressure, it seems they were workinghard, spending long hours on the job, and sometimes feel-ing jazzed about what they were doing. But at the sametime,there was a lot offrustration-another clue that willhelp 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. In 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, tbe drop in creative thinking was most ap-parent when time pressure was at its worst In the dailydiary form, participants were asked to rate the time pres-sure 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 ofthe 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. Inother 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 lingering time-pressure effect showed up whetherwe examined time pressure day to day or over longerperiods. The higher the overall sense oftime pressure thatparticipants felt during the first week oftheir 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 theoverall sense oftime 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



A Peek intothe Diaries

These diary excerptswere written by studyparticipants who experi-enced the four workconditions described inthis article. See if you oryour employees mightsay something similarabout experiences inyour own organization.

On a Mission(High Time Pressure,High Likelihoodof Creative Thinking)

"At the end ofthe day today, after gettingthe documents ready, it hit me as to howcreative Katherine and I had been to-gether when we had worked in a room,away from the telephones, noise, interrup-tions, and other distractions. I felt verysatisfied with the work we produced."

"Just as I was knee-deep in Is and Os,staring at an execution trace ofthefirmware (which was acting strangely),I got three phone calls in a row. I wasabout ready to throw the damn phoneacross the room. Fortunately, it stoppedringing after that, and I was able torefocus and find the problem. Hooray."

"We found out today that the drop test onone of our products was not done prop-erly, and we needed a way to pad ourproduct in a rush. I remembered that wehad $10 million worth of an obsolete cellcushion that we were getti ng ready towrite off, and I suggested we use that.It worked great!"

"I brought in some of my personal cameraequipment today and used it to create ahigh-magnification video analysis sys-tem.. , I felt this was very creative work onmy 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)

"In my meeting with Seth to discussthe imaging model, several ideas hementioned meshed with ideas I had,and I came away with a better andmore detailed model."

"Wendy brought in her samples oftheILP films and presented them to me ina way that really made sense and trig-gered a lot of good ideas on my end."

"John spent time discussing promotionalopportunities with me, and I felt like Iwas really learning something."

"I tried out my patterned adhesive winelabels in the lab. Bought wine at thegrocery store and committed sacrilegeby pouring it into the sink. My pat-terned adhesive didn't really work well,but I made some interesting observa-tions that helped me understand theproblem a little better."

"While brainstorming ideas for solvingthe axle retention problem, I discovereda way to reduce the cost of our currentwheeled container. In addition, this maygive us a better product that is easierto produce. I made a few calls to begininvestigating the feasibility."

help to explain. Psychologists have long believed that cre-ativity results from the formation of a large number of as-sociations in the mind, followed by the selection of asso-ciations that may be particularly interesting and useful. Ina sense, it's as if the mind is throwing a bunch of balls intothe cognitive space, juggling them around until they col-lide 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 ulti-mate novelty ofthe solution will be greater.

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

of the creative process. And some recent research sug-gests that the success of the combinatorial process de-pends both on having sufficient time to create the balls tojuggle-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. So we have still more clues abouthow being under the gun might affect the creative process.



On a Treadmill(High Time Pressure,Low Likelihoodof Creative Thinking)

"\ spentthedaytryingtogeta businessplan finished-or at least started-for this strategic alliance. I was veryfrustrated by constant interruptions,which make it necessary to get thistype of work done before or afterhours."

"Today was a very long day spent inseveral meetings. We spend so muchtime covering old issues instead ofdriving the business forward."

"I was informed that I have to comeup with a new launch rationale byMonday so it can be reviewed by theoperating team. The relaunchingof the old printers is devoid of anylogical strategy. Now I have to makeup one that sounds good."

"One problem after another occurredtoday I had intended to completeseveral different items for the producttransfer,but I spent the day fightingfires instead"

On Autopilot(Low Time Pressure,Low Likelihoodof Creative Thinking)

"Very low energy today. Must bethe weather, but I feel whipped.Focused on organizing and plan-ning. Put out an agenda for theoptimization meeting tomorrow."

"Overall feeling of depressiontoday."

"Mostly just doing paperv /̂ork.I cleaned up a lotof outstandingitems."

"The team had an all-day meetingwith the general manager. He justraised three questions, ratherthan giving us a clear leadershipresponse to what we've done."

"Today I gave a two-hour presenta-tion on product strategy andplans for the new product launchto our European marketing man-agers. I was disappointed by their[apathetic] response. The sameold issues came up and a moder-ately negative attitude prevailed."

Protecting CreativityEven 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 dif-ference? It's time to put the clues together.

When we compared the diary entries from the time-pressured days when creative thinking happened to theentries from tbe time-pressured days when no creativethinking happened, we found that the creative days fea-tured a particular-and rather rare-set of working condi-tions. Above all else, these days were marked by a sense

of focus. People were able to con-centrate on a single work activity fora significant portion of the day. Asone diarist jubilantly declared: "Theevent of the day was that I had nostandout events. I was able to con-centrate on the project at hand with-out interruptions." This focus wasoften hard-won, as the individuals ortheir managers went to great lengthsto protect their work from interrup-tions and other disturbances: "Therewere so many interruptions for chit-chat that I couldn't get any decentwork accomplished. I eventually hadto go work very quietly in anotherroom to get some of it done."

Indeed, tbis sense of focus impliessome degree of isolation. On thetime-pressured days that still yieldedcreative thinking, we noted that col-laboration was limited. When it hap-pened, it was somewhat more likelyto be done in a concentrated way-forinstance, working with another indi-vidual rather than in a group: "I hada chance to talk at the end ofthe daywith Susan. She helped confirm thatthe path 1 was taking was right andhelped me figure out some ofthe dif-ferences in the codes. Her help willkeep me going."

Another key condition for achiev-ing creativity on the high-pressuredays was interpreting the time pres-sure as meaningful urgency. Peopleunderstood why solving a problem or

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ completing 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 chal-lenged by it. The sense of urgency 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:All nonessential work was abandoned until the air fil-tration problem was solved and the astronauts were re-turned home safely.



But when this protected focus was missing on time-pressured days-and it very often was-people felt morelike they were on a treadmill. On these days, our diaristsreported a more extreme level of time pressure eventhough they were not working more hours, and they feltmuch more distracted. When recording the number ofdifferent activities they performed, they were likely to usewords like "several," "many," and "too numerous to count."They were pulled in tcx) many directions, unable to focuson a single activity for any significant period of time. Onediarist, paraphrasing the oft-repeated lament, said: "Thefaster I run, the behinder I get."

Our first clue, that people might have to switch gearsmore often under time pressure, underlies this treadmillcondition; many things are clamoring for people's atten-tion simultaneously. Remember, too, our clue that feel-ings of time pressure are associated with frustration, es-pecially frustration with other members of a team. Wesuspect that interruptions contribute to that frustration.Other evidence adds to the picture of a distracted, dis-turbed, confiising 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. Inmany 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 process customer or-ders." On these low-focus, time-pressured days, peopleweren't very likely to see what they were doing as impor-tant or to feel a meaningful sense of urgency to completea project or task.

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

Don't befooled into thinking that time pressure

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

illusion but an illusion nonetheless.

time pressure, low or high, reports of creative thinkingwere relatively rare; they showed up in only about 5% ofthe 9,otxvplus daily diary reports. Under low time pres-sure, 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

toward exploring and generating new ideas than identi-fying problems to be solved. (Remember our clue fromthe psychological literature on combinatorial play.) Peo-ple behaved as if they were on an expedition. In 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 peo-ple 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 evi-dence of creative thinking. They seemed tt) be doing theirjobs, putting one foot in front of the other, without en-gaging 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-level management to do cre-ative work. Perhaps if creativity had been encouragedmore, these individuals would have made better use oftheir relatively low-pressure days.

Lessons for Management-and 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 organiza-tions 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, re-search suggests, is not the norm in modem organi-zations: being able to become deeply immersed, andstay deeply immersed, in an important, urgent prob-lem. Given the demands in most organizations forcommunication and process checks, as well as the

•" prevalence of highly interdependent work roles,protected creativity time does not occur naturally.

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

Our first suggestion is the obvious one: Avoid extremetime pressure whenever possible, particularly if you arelooking for high levels of learning, exploration, idea gen-


Creativity Under the Cun

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 some 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 mod-ern 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 nothing ^would be accomplished. 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 peo-ple are encouraged to leam, to play with ideas,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 ere- ^ ~ative endeavors. All its R&D scientists devote thattime to exploring whatever new ideas or pet projects mostintrigue them personally, even if those ideas and projectsare far afield from their assigned work.

For most companies, the best way to avoid undue timepressure is to articulate goals at all levels of the organi-zation that are realistic and carefully planned, avoidingthe optimism bias that plagues a lot of corporate plan-ning. 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 com-ing up with the ideas for those products. Signing a con-tract 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.

In situations where time pressure can't be avoided,managers should focus on protecting time-pressured peo-ple who are supposed to be doing creative work from in-terruptions, distractions, and unrelated demands for a sig-nificant portion of each workweek. This concentration on"real work" 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 Time: How Corporations, Individuuls, andFamilies Can Benefit from New Work Practices (Cornell

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. Her re-search 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 feei

Signing a contract that promises to deliver items

to a client by a certain date, without careful

scoping of what the project will likely involve,

can lead to the treadmill mentality.

that you are on a mission ifyou accept that there is an im-portant, 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 tread-mill. Our research suggests that managers should alst> en-courage one-on-one collaborations and discussions, avoid-ing an excess ofthe 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.

* • *

In short, the key to protecting creative activity-includingyour own - is to offset the effects of extreme time pres-sure. 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 mind-set of being on a mission - shar-ing a sense that the work is vital and the urgency legiti-mate. It also means ruthlessly guarding protected blocksofthe workweek, shielding staff from the distractions andinterruptions that are the normal condition of organiza-tional life. The best situation for creativity is not to beunder the gun. But ifyou can't manage that, at least leamto dodge the bullets. ^

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