• by Chuck McBride , Yesterday

Contrary to what some might believe, a blue-sky approach isn’t the best way to create breakthrough work. Having too much room, too much freedom, doesn’t help generate a brilliant idea. It’s like adding more hay when there’s only one needle.

Imagine the surface area of “complete freedom.” It would be like an ocean. Now go out there and look for something small. Would you know where to start? How far to go?

Just thinking about it, the sheer endlessness of having no boundaries is numbing. You could never fully explore all that territory. You wouldn’t know whether what you found over here is better than what you found over there. You probably wouldn’t feel safe enough to pick a spot and work it long enough to master it, polish it, and protect it.

I’ve found that the better process is to be super-clear, focused, and explicit -- and create a box that’s small. Then ask creatives to explore every inch of it. Reiterate that the work needs to do a particular job and you want people to feel a certain way.

Hitting that mark is like taking the dartboard and reducing it to just the bullseye. And if all you see is the bullseye, all you focus on is the bullseye.

Suddenly, that bullseye gets really, really big. Its surface area, while small, explodes with nuance and intricacy. From this kind of precision comes a wealth of interpretations -- a wellspring of angles, insights, and understandings. You literally can’t stop it. It’s a complete mess of absolutely wonderful takes on doing the same thing over and over again, knowing each idea needs to be different than the one before it. Pushing limits. Testing boundaries. You can begin to stack them up easily, creating a system of creative understanding that looks more like a doctoral thesis than a book report.

Everyone loves research. Harvard creativity researcher Teresa Amabile found that constraints actually fuel creativity. In her componential theory of creativity, she points out that clear goals heighten motivation and sharpen skills -- both of which thrive inside a well-designed box.

Barry Schwartz, in “The Paradox of Choice,” shows how having too many options leads to paralysis and second-guessing. The same holds true for creative work: Fewer, clearer choices free people up. They give confidence. They reduce anxiety. And they make it easier to move forward with conviction.

John Sweller’s cognitive load theory reminds us that our working memory has limits. Without boundaries, the sheer volume of possibilities overloads the brain. We end up skimming the surface instead of diving deep. But a smart, focused constraint? That’s what clears the clutter and gives the mind room to go deeper, sharper, richer.

Get small to go big. Tighten the brief. Ask your team to solve a specific problem, in a specific way, with a specific, thoughtful human insight. Then? Turn them loose on the head of that needle.