This week, I’m creating a work culture of one. I’m on a solo Deep Dive Retreat in the Catskill Mountains to make clear decisions about Tracking Wonder’s next initiatives. These retreats have helped me write two books, design programs, and stay in sane connection with the greater-than-human world.
But even with solitude and nature’s genius, creative clarity doesn’t just “arrive.” Creative intelligence—the capacity to generate, discern, and act on novel and useful ideas—often depends less on talent and more on conditions. You have to set up the right conditions for creativity to emerge on cue.
That’s as true for a team or organization as it is for one person in the woods—and one surprising condition has to do with the right kind of stress.
I want to share three proven conditions that reliably boost creative intelligence and morale, drawn from recent research and my applied work with leaders, entrepreneurs, and creators. Even leaders and creatives who value innovation can miss a key truth: Sustained creativity often depends less on tools or talent, and more on the environments we shape around us.
The Missed Intelligence
In my keynotes and talks with tech-forward companies, I’ve met leaders and team members who admit they’re in a constant state of context-switching and screen fatigue. They crave moments when insight can surface.
A recent study by the online education platform Moodle shows that 66 percent (!) of U.S. employees have recently experienced burnout. That’s two out of three people. A recent workplace well-being report from Gies College of Business suggests that a similar number of employees are languishing more than flourishing. Many people are worn down by stress, constant change, and the pace of digital life.
Granted, in the turbulent new world of work, many organizations, as well as entrepreneurs and creators, are doubling down on artificial intelligence to save time and spark innovation. With discernment, tools like ChatGPT can certainly assist with idea generation and analysis, as recent studies and anecdotal stories are corroborating. But AI is a tool, not a condition.
What consistently develops people’s innate creative intelligence at work are environmental, psychological, and social conditions. Without them, no tool will prevent burnout or disengagement.
1. Clear the Hindrances
It helps to distinguish good stress and bad stress—although admittedly the two often overlap. In 2000, M.A. Cavanaugh et al. proposed the difference between hindrance stressors and challenge stressors.
Hindrance stressors impede creativity at work. In organizations, these stressors are office politics, red tape, role confusion, and job insecurity. No amount of “cool culture perks” or a charismatic CEO will undo the damage if those hindrances dominate. Even in solitude or in work-from-home situations, hindrances can be internal, including digital distractions, self-doubt, overcommitment, or voluntary context-switching.
Findings: Hindrance stressors hinder our ability to generate novel and useful ideas.
2. Creativity Is Not Stress-Free: Healthy Challenge
I’ve learned to apply “good stress” and to advise others on how to do so. Challenge stressors, or “good stress,” include a meaningful workload and reasonable and realistic time constraints, as well as clear but expansive responsibilities. They stretch us just enough to try out new ideas. But they’re not the kind of stress that breaks us or burns us out.
Findings: Challenge stressors are great for generating ideas—neutral on executing them.
When on DDR, I set specific aims and challenges for each day. Doing so keeps me focused and fully activating my limited talents, focus, and creative intelligence.
A more recent study, as well as my applied research and field work, puts these challenge stressors in context. A study in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications demonstrates that high-performance HR practices contribute to employees’ creative intelligence. These practices include investing in team members’ continued training, supporting them with resources, and giving them opportunities to advance. In return, team members contribute creative and innovative ideas.
But high performance and high expectations and healthy challenges alone won’t foster the best in us—especially for the long term.
3. Psychological Safety: Curiosity Across the Board
Perhaps the most important, if not unsurprising, finding from this study is this: “[E]mployees’ psychological safety moderates the relationship between high-performance human resource practices and employee creativity. The stronger an employee’s sense of psychological safety, the greater their creativity in response to high-performance HR practices.”
Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and author of Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, characterizes climates of psychological safety as cultures where it is safe to speak up, question the way things are done, propose solutions, take risks, and admit mistakes.
In this volatile new world of work, perhaps this condition is the one we most need to remember.
Psychological safety actually tracks with what I advise on in creating workplace cultures of curiosity. Curiosity—including the willingness to raise difficult questions out of care, not complaint—sparks creativity by fueling idea linking. One question opens the next. One idea sparks another. Threads connect in ways no one expected. What looked like a dead end turns into a surprising new pathway.
Curiosity Coupled With Psychological Safety Makes Room for Possibility
If you’re a culture of one—or work from home—you can establish your own psychological safety for creativity. Set up a clear yet flexible work routine. Schedule wonder breaks alone or with others. Establish boundaries with coworkers. Give yourself permission to mess up or even come up with ludicrous ideas.
Bringing It Home
I’m trying to walk my talk this week.
- I’ve cleared the hindrance of digital distraction. My SelfControl app is on for 16 to 24 hours at a time. My assistant monitors my email. My family and I connect each evening.
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I have my healthy challenge stressors that keep me focused.
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I’ve brought with me all of the work environment elements—a tabletop standing desk, the dining table moved to the windows for ongoing sky watching. I create and monitor a flexible schedule with minimal clock-checking and maximal sunlight-checking. And I take periodic wonder breaks—30-minute hikes, 30-minute mind-clearing drives in the mountains, 30-minute sketchpad sessions, and lots of chocolate. Because, why not?
Give your creative intelligence the attention it deserves. And give it the conditions to activate it. Because in a distracted world, giving your creative intelligence the right conditions can be a radical act of wonder.
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If you’re on a team, share these ideas with your teammates or manager.
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If you’re a leader, share these ideas with others on the leadership team.
Regardless, let me know how these ideas land with you.
