The maxim “people learn to swim in the winter and skate in the summer” reflects perfectly how the human mind works.
It also applies to everyday decision-making and problem-solving for leaders. Once a problem or decision is primed and placed into thought, the brain begins working on it.
Even when leaders are not actively trying to think through the decision or solve a problem, the brain continues processing it unconsciously in the background. The regions of the brain responsible for decision-making remain active even when the conscious mind is distracted by or focused on other tasks.
Without a leader even realizing it, their brain compares the current decision or problem with past experiences stored in memory, sifting through the relevant information, looking for potential answers or approaches.
When they turn their attention to the decision after a few hours, a night’s sleep, or even weeks or months later, the brain has typically made headway toward a solution or answer.
Research shows that the quality of decisions made after distraction, sleep, or inactivity is generally higher than those made by analysis without the benefit of downtime.
While not all problems or decisions lend themselves to periods of inactivity, many of the most difficult and complex decisions benefit greatly when leaders allow them to marinate in the brain.
To take full advantage of this magical process, how people prime or set up the decision is critically important. It’s not enough to think about a problem and then simply ignore it for a while.
The first step to incorporate this marination process is to clearly identify the decision, problem, or opportunity you want the brain to work on. Articulating the problem statement in writing is essential.
Once the statement exists, a leader can then read it with the inner voice, tell the brain to start working on it, and then put the declaration aside. This can be done just before bedtime, at the beginning or end of a day, or at any point when you have the time to prime the brain but then can focus on other matters.
If you find yourself thinking about the problem or decision, distract yourself by pursuing other tasks until it disappears from your thoughts. If the decision is far out on the horizon, then occasionally repriming the brain by re-reading the statement can encourage the brain to keep the background analysis going.
Without having an idea about what work has already been done, leaders often find that when it comes time to wrestle with the decision and make it, the quality of their thinking is commonly better thanks to the effort the brain has already put in.
Of course, it may happen that the decision suddenly pops into your mind with an elegant solution ready-made, thanks to the marination process.
Some of the world’s greatest thinkers, scientists, and artists describe these epiphanies in a host of books and manuscripts. What they seldom tell their readers is that they primed the brain to think about the problem days, weeks, or months earlier.
Lightning strikes when the clouds have already formed.
