10 simple tips to unlock your creativity and the creativity of your organization. Based on decades of research and interviews with more than 100 top performers.

1. IS YOUR THINKING TOO SAFE?
10 simple habits changes to act more boldly
and become far more creative

2. SAFE THINKING: UNSAFE THINKING:
Sticking with the tried & true
Minimizing risk
Resisting change
Constantly adapting
Thriving on change
Embracing intelligent risk
In a world of accelerating disruption, safe thinking
has become extremely dangerous.

3. SAFE THINKING:
Maximize the time you spend
doing what you’re best at.

4. UNSAFE THINKING:
Spend at least 15% of your time
doing things you suck at.
When scientists studied the world’s top performing musicians, they
found they didn’t practice more than their peers. They just spent more
time focusing on the things they struggled most with.

5. SAFE THINKING:
See anxiety as a danger sign
that’s telling you to pull back.

6. UNSAFE THINKING:
Greet anxiety as the first sign that
you’re on your creative edge.
Psychologists have demonstrated that it’s nearly impossible to
train yourself not to feel afraid in high stakes situations. High
performers, however, are able to reframe their fear as fuel for
creativity.

7. SAFE THINKING:
Surround yourself with
people who share your values.

8. UNSAFE THINKING:
Collaborate with people you
consider critics or even enemies.
Studies show that groups that share worldview and
experiences are far less creative than diverse groups —
even when the diverse groups are individually less talented.

9. SAFE THINKING:
Believe that
you’re an expert.

10. UNSAFE THINKING:
Aim to be an explorer.
The more you identify as an expert, the more slowly you
will learn. As an Explorer, you won’t be ego-identified with
what you know — so you’ll be far more curious and nimble
as the world changes around you.

11. SAFE THINKING:
Only trust decisions
based on data.

12. UNSAFE THINKING:
Listen to your gut.
Less than 20% of your perceptions are processed by your
conscious brain. Your subconscious gathers and analyzes far
more information but you have to be aware of your intuitive
senses to access its genius.
IS YOUR THINKING TOO SAFE?

13. SAFE THINKING:
Trust your gut
without question.

14. UNSAFE THINKING:
Identify biases that
Often, what seems like an intuitive insight is just prejudice
or internalized conventional thinking. When we feel
something is right, we should get excited but also search
for the source of our insight.
often disguise themselves
as intuition.

15. SAFE THINKING:
With a difficult problem,
never give up until you solve it.

16. UNSAFE THINKING:
Rethink the problem itself.
Many creative challenges can’t be solved as originally
posed. Breakthrough thinkers often spend as much time
reframing the problem as they do generating solutions.
Then solve it.

17. SAFE THINKING:
Reward your
highest performers.

18. UNSAFE THINKING:
Reward your most
thoughtful risk-takers.
Organizations that give credit and incentives to those that
consistently meet goals inadvertently push their people to take no
chances. Specific rewards for risk-takers are needed to remind
teams that it’s safe to get unsafe.

19. SAFE THINKING:
Make sure rules are broadly spelled out
so everyone’s on the same page.

20. UNSAFE THINKING:
Minimize rules to the very
fewest possible.
The more rules a team is given, the more time they waste
trying to understand and then to work around them. The
ideal number of rules is just one this side of chaos.

21. SAFE THINKING:
Lead with confidence.

22. UNSAFE THINKING:
Lead with humility.
Leaders who value projecting infallibility have been shown
to make more errors in judgement while employees report
that they feel more inspired by humble bosses.

23. What will be your first step toward unsafe thinking?
These 10 habit changes are based on decades
of research into creativity and performance,
They will increase your ability to break your patterns
and become more nimble and bold.

24. “An enchanting book about how
to question the conventional and
challenge the status quo.”
— Adam Grant
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April 24, 2018
@jonahsachs
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