Innovative Instincts: The Emotional Spark Of Creativity

Innovation is not just a cognitive process. It is an emotional one. It requires doing something new, and that can be scary because it means entering the unknown and learning from failures. We all want to avoid failure, to not look stupid, and to protect our egos. But to be innovative, we must overcome these fears and be more open-minded and emotionally intelligent.

Emotions play a critical role in innovation. Positive emotions enable and enhance innovative thinking, creativity, and better decision-making, while negative emotions like fear and anxiety have the opposite effect.

Emotional innovation is about turning our talents inward toward self-articulation and personal growth. It is about approaching ourselves as artists and elevating our standards. It requires us to be honest, vulnerable, and real. By doing so, we can build a tribe of like-minded people who appreciate what we believe and reflect it back to us, giving us the confidence to take more risks.

Emotional innovation is complex and requires the simultaneous approach of multiple planes: body, mind, brain, spirit, beliefs, paradigms, resilience, environments, evolution, and purpose. It is about stimulating the emotional brain and channelling individual contributions positively to transform and reinvent.

Innovation requires courage

Innovation is not just a cognitive process, but an emotional one. It requires courage to enter the unknown and to face the possibility of failure. Courage is the internal fortitude to move forward when the path is uncertain and hazardous.

Courage is a key value for innovation leaders. Leaders with courage can help their team members face their fears of failure and explore the unknown. They can create an environment of psychological safety, where team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of their teammates. This type of environment fosters innovation, as people are more willing to share their ideas and experiment with new approaches.

Additionally, courage is necessary for pursuing options that are risky, novel, or untried. It takes courage to be creative and to have new ideas, as it often means going against the status quo and facing opposition from peers. Courageous leaders are persistent and dogged in pursuing their options, even in the face of initial failure or resistance. They are also humble, recognising that ideas can come from anyone and being willing to admit their mistakes.

In conclusion, innovation requires courage to take risks, face uncertainty, and persist in the face of challenges. Courageous leadership is essential for fostering a culture of innovation and helping individuals overcome their fears and embrace new possibilities.

Ego and fear are inhibitors of innovation

Innovation is not just a cognitive process, it is also an emotional one. It requires doing something new and novel, and that can be scary because it means stepping into the unknown and learning from failures. As children, we learn that success comes from making the fewest mistakes and we develop emotional defences to protect our egos and our self-image. This is where the two big inhibitors of innovation come into play: ego and fear.

Ego and fear hold us back from taking risks, being vulnerable, and embracing the unknown. They make us defensive and closed-minded, and hinder our ability to perceive reality accurately. To innovate, we must overcome our fears of failure and our self-centred views of the world. We need to be open-minded, emotionally intelligent, and reflective listeners.

Research by leading cognitive, social, and positive psychologists has found that positive emotions enhance cognitive processing, innovative thinking, and creativity, while negative emotions like fear and anxiety have the opposite effect. In the workplace, these negative emotions can manifest as fears of looking bad, speaking up, making mistakes, or losing one's job.

To foster innovation, organisations must address these emotional inhibitors through leadership role modelling, culture, and human development. They must create psychologically safe environments where people feel safe to take risks, be vulnerable, and make mistakes without fear of retribution. By managing their ego and emotions, individuals can free their minds to imagine, create, connect, and explore the unknown, ultimately leading to successful innovation.

Positive emotions enable innovative thinking

Emotions play a crucial role in innovation. It is not just a cognitive process, but an emotional one too. Doing something new can be scary, and often involves learning from failure. We must overcome our fear of failure to learn iteratively, and we must overcome our self-centred views of the world to perceive the world as it is.

Positive emotions enable and enhance innovative thinking, creativity, and lead to better decision-making. When we feel positive emotions, our thinking becomes more creative and open-minded. We are able to see more connections between ideas and think more broadly, allowing us to explore more options and solutions to problems. We become more open to new concepts and flexible in our thinking.

Research by cognitive, social, and positive psychologists including Barbara Fredrickson and Alice Isen has produced strong evidence that positive emotions enable and enhance innovative thinking. Their research also found that negative emotions have the opposite effect.

A study by Nadja Contzen, Goda Perlaviciute, Pantea Sadat-Razavi, and Linda Steg found that the more an innovation was perceived to have characteristics congruent with people's values, the stronger the positive emotions they experienced toward the innovation. This highlights that emotions toward innovations can have a systematic basis in people's values that can be addressed to ensure responsible decision-making.

Another study, by S Langley, found that positive emotions seem to be beneficial for creative output, both in quantity and quality. The study concluded that positive emotions are beneficial for big-picture, creative, innovative thinking.

To enable innovative thinking, it is important to cultivate positive emotions. This can be done by focusing on the positives, practising mindfulness, and cultivating optimism. By doing so, we can enhance our ability to think creatively, intuitively, and with good judgement.

Negative emotions have the opposite effect

Research has shown that negative emotions—especially fear and anxiety—inhibit innovation. Fears and anxiety in the workplace can take many forms, including fears of looking bad, speaking up, making mistakes, losing your job, or not being liked. We all want to be liked, accepted, and fit in. These emotions are a result of our ego and fear, which are the two big emotional inhibitors of innovation.

Negative emotions can also be a result of our core values. For example, in a study on emotions toward sustainable innovations, participants reported stronger negative emotions when they believed that the innovation was incongruent with their core values. In this study, negative emotions included disgust, disappointment, and worry.

In order to innovate, we must overcome our negative emotions and manage our fears. This can be done by creating an environment of psychological safety, where employees feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable. It is also important for organizations to confront emotional enablers and inhibitors through leadership role modeling, culture, and human development.

Additionally, negative emotions can be a result of overstimulation. In order to make better decisions, it is important to lower your frequency and create spaces for reflection and conscious pauses. This will allow you to process information and make sense of complex processes.

Overall, negative emotions can hinder innovation and creativity. By managing and overcoming these emotions, we can free our minds to imagine, create, and explore new possibilities.

Emotional innovation requires a simultaneous approach of 10 planes: body, mind, brain, spirit, beliefs, paradigms, resilience, environments, evolution and purpose

Emotional innovation is a complex process that requires a nuanced understanding of the interplay between emotions and innovation. It involves creating an environment that fosters psychological safety, encouraging open communication, and managing emotions effectively to enhance cognitive processing and innovative thinking. This approach is essential for organizations aiming to increase the quality and speed of their innovation processes in today's rapidly changing business landscape.

Emotional innovation requires a simultaneous approach that considers ten distinct but interconnected planes. These planes encompass various aspects of human experience and interaction, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding and harnessing the power of emotions in innovation. Here is a detailed explanation of each plane:

• Body: The physical aspect of a person, including their physiological responses to emotions and their impact on overall health and well-being.
• Mind: The cognitive and intellectual faculties, including thoughts, beliefs, and imagination. Managing and channeling the mind effectively is crucial for innovative thinking.
• Brain: The organ that governs the emotional brain and plays a pivotal role in giving meaning, purpose, and understanding. Neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to adapt and form new neural connections, is key to emotional innovation.
• Spirit: Refers to the intangible essence of a person, encompassing their values, motivations, and life force. Tapping into the spirit can inspire and drive innovation.
• Beliefs: Individual and collective beliefs shape how people perceive and interact with the world. Challenging limiting beliefs and fostering a culture of open-mindedness is essential for innovation.
• Paradigms: These are the underlying patterns or models that govern how people understand and interact with their reality. Shifting paradigms can lead to breakthrough innovations.
• Resilience: The ability to persevere and adapt in the face of challenges and setbacks. Emotional resilience is crucial for navigating the uncertainties inherent in innovation.
• Environments: The physical and social surroundings that influence emotions and behaviors. Creating supportive and psychologically safe environments fosters innovation.
• Evolution: Recognizing and embracing the dynamic nature of emotions and innovation. Emotional innovation requires a willingness to evolve and adapt to changing circumstances.
• Purpose: A clear sense of direction and intent is essential for channeling emotions productively. Purpose provides the fuel for innovation and helps align individual efforts with organizational goals.

By addressing these ten planes simultaneously, organizations can harness the power of emotions to drive innovation. It involves creating a culture that values emotional intelligence, open communication, and psychological safety, ultimately leading to transformative and transcendent outcomes.

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