Innovators – and any leader – can learn a lot from magicians. There is a lot of commonality between creating innovation and performing a magic trick. It’s helpful to know this as we create cultures of creativity and innovation.

Magicians understand something very clearly: our brains can’t always be trusted. Magic is often very impressive because the brain doesn’t process the information correctly.

When we see someone go into a box to conceal their body, and we see the feet, hands and head, our brains tell us that it’s the same person we’re seeing. What if it isn’t?

As we pursue ideas, make decisions and embark on innovation, our brains engage in the same processing: our minds take shortcuts and fill in gaps, leading to incomplete solutions.

Magicians know where the limits of our minds are. They know how to trick the mind because they have carefully studied its shortcomings .

As leaders, we also need to learn about the mind’s shortcomings – in this case not to exploit it for our ‘magic tricks’ but to guard against them so that we can be more intentional.

Here are some common ways in which our minds mis-process information:

• We fill gaps in information with something ‘plausible’. It’s very hard for our minds to remain aware of little pieces of information that are missing. It is much easier to fill them with something that makes sense.
  (Tell a child a fairy tale where at the end a prince marries the princess, but leave out an important piece of information: don ’t explain where the prince comes from. Ask them to tell the story back to you. You’ll likely hear a great story about how the prince enters the story. )
• We focus on select information. We cannot take in all information, and instead need to filter out what we consider irrelevant. Our focus on select information makes us blind to what is not in focus.
  (Formula 1 racing teams are known for their creative ways to reduce the time taken for a pit stop. They know that to break through limits, they need to look elsewhere. By learning from UPS , airports, and even ballets, they shift their focus to reduce their blind spots. )
• We confuse correlation with causation . When we notice correlations, we look for causes and effects. Sometimes we get it right – sometimes we don’t.
  (Do braces cause puberty? Of course not. Correlation, yet no direct causation)

Take the Next Step

 

Here’s what to look out for this week: each time you think or say because you’re saying there is a causality. Double-check!

Be sure that any time you develop a new idea, you look at it from multiple perspectives. What are you missing? What assumptions are you making? What conclusions are you drawing? Are you filling any information gaps?

Just like the reveal in a magic trick, a different camera angle can show us a completely different picture.