How to think outside the box — according to research

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What happens to creativity when those who use a particular thinking style tried a different approach? Getty Images

Creativity is an essential ingredient in problem-solving, and the importance of "thinking outside the box" has been stressed in nearly every context imaginable, business or otherwise. But that mantra assumes — wrongly — that we all start off thinking inside the same sort of cognitive box.

Instead, each person has a distinctive cognitive style: some of us, for example, are more intuitive, and others approach the world more rationally. What happens to creativity when those who use a particular thinking style tried a different approach?

Rice Business Professor Erik Dane decided to investigate. Along with colleagues Markus Baer of Washington University in St. Louis, Michael Pratt of Boston College, and Greg Oldham of Tulane University Dane studied typical thinking styles, rational versus and intuitive, and how resisting the most familiar one can affect creativity.

Rational thinkers, the professors noted, learn information deliberately and engage in thoughtful analysis. They depend on a linear, or sequential, way of processing information. Intuitive thinking, meanwhile, is an unconscious way of processing information. It's essentially the opposite of rational thinking: quick and holistic, rather than deliberate and comprehensive.

When a rational thinker faces a problem, her mind goes through multiple stages, tapping relevant mental data bases and coming up with alternative solutions. Her mind evaluates and refines these scenarios to choose the best possible solution to the problem.

An intuitive thinker, on the other hand, goes with his gut. Many researchers believe this type of thinking sparks creativity because it integrates so many different pieces of experience.

To explore what happens when one type of thinker follows a different approach, Dane and his fellow researchers colleagues gave test subjects a scenario. How could they get more students to come into a gift shop? Participants first had to come up with ideas using either an intuitive or a rational problem-solving approach. Then they filled out a short questionnaire. Afterward, the professors evaluated the ideas as creative or not creative, based on originality and usefulness.

When a participant wasn't used to rational thinking and had to problem-solve using a more rational approach, he or she came up with more creative ideas, the researchers found. This, the researchers said, suggests it's worth encouraging intuitive thinkers to change up their problem-solving style to come up with new ideas.

Curiously, it's relatively easy to influence a person's cognitive approach to a problem, the researchers found. At the same time, the research didn't suggest that either approach — rational or intuitive thinking — was inherently better than the other. In fact, they wrote, future research on the topic ought to analyze what happens when subjects are encourage to take a hybrid rational-intuitive approach.

In the meantime, whether you're trying to lure customers to your new coffee shop, or figuring out the best ending to your crime novel, try attacking the problem with the thinking style that's least familiar to you. To truly think outside the box, the first thing to do is peer over the side to see what style of thinking most often boxes you in.

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This article originally appeared on Rice Business Wisdom.

Erik Dane is an associate professor of management at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

Researchers found that there's still very little conceptual explanation for how individual creative attempts become organizational innovation. Getty Images

Researchers find there's not much data on how creativity becomes change in the workplace

Houston Voices

Innovation and creativity are crucial tools that all businesses need in order to prosper. Research into how these tools work covers a broad area and crosses various disciplines. In the past, much of this research has been divided: One side looked at innovation, which focuses on how ideas are implemented, while the other examined creativity, which focuses on coming up with new ideas. Rice Business Professor Jing Zhou and colleagues addressed this divide by reviewing research going back a little more than a decade, looking for key measures that could be used as guidelines for future research.

Zhou and her colleagues began their work by reviewing the practical and theoretical perspectives of innovation and creativity in the workplace. They then created a framework for future research after identifying prominent theories.

Before getting started, however, they needed clear definitions for both innovation and creativity. Creativity, Zhou proposed, centers on idea generation. It's the first step toward innovation. Innovation, she concluded, stresses the implementation of ideas. This happens at different levels: individual, team, organization, or across multiple levels.

At the team level of innovation, research has progressed significantly, the authors found. They suggest that researchers now focus on other aspects of team-level research, such as team environment, leadership and facilitators of workgroups.

At the organizational level, Zhou and her colleagues found that numerous studies looked at the factors that influence innovation. But, they concluded, there's still very little conceptual explanation for how individual creative attempts become organizational innovation.

The team's review reveals the enormous strides that researchers have made in the field of creativity and innovation in recent years, and clarifies how their studies have been used by different organizations.

Despite advances in the field, however, there are still shortcomings. Many studies, for example, are hampered by problematic research approaches. Some lack theoretical groundwork and few take an inclusive approach to multi-level studies.

Zhou and her colleagues argue that addressing these limitations would be a tremendous leap forward in understanding creativity and innovation in the workplace. Without innovation, companies can't prosper and progress. The same holds true for academic research into these lifelines of business success: It will need to expand and dig deeper or cease to be relevant in practice.

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This article originally appeared on Rice Business Wisdom.

Jing Zhou is the Houston Endowment Professor of Management and Director for Asian Management Research and Education at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

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Houston company plans lunar mission to test clean energy resource

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Houston-based natural resource and lunar development company Black Moon Energy Corporation (BMEC) announced that it is planning a robotic mission to the surface of the moon within the next five years.

The company has engaged NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Caltech to carry out the mission’s robotic systems, scientific instrumentation, data acquisition and mission operations. Black Moon will lead mission management, resource-assessment strategy and large-scale operations planning.

The goal of the year-long expedition will be to gather data and perform operations to determine the feasibility of a lunar Helium-3 supply chain. Helium-3 is abundant on the surface of the moon, but extremely rare on Earth. BMEC believes it could be a solution to the world's accelerating energy challenges.

Helium-3 fusion releases 4 million times more energy than the combustion of fossil fuels and four times more energy than traditional nuclear fission in a “clean” manner with no primary radioactive products or environmental issues, according to BMEC. Additionally, the company estimates that there is enough lunar Helium-3 to power humanity for thousands of years.

"By combining Black Moon's expertise in resource development with JPL and Caltech's renowned scientific and engineering capabilities, we are building the knowledge base required to power a new era of clean, abundant, and affordable energy for the entire planet," David Warden, CEO of BMEC, said in a news release.

The company says that information gathered from the planned lunar mission will support potential applications in fusion power generation, national security systems, quantum computing, radiation detection, medical imaging and cryogenic technologies.

Black Moon Energy was founded in 2022 by David Warden, Leroy Chiao, Peter Jones and Dan Warden. Chiao served as a NASA astronaut for 15 years. The other founders have held positions at Rice University, Schlumberger, BP and other major energy space organizations.

Houston co. makes breakthrough in clean carbon fiber manufacturing

Future of Fiber

Houston-based Mars Materials has made a breakthrough in turning stored carbon dioxide into everyday products.

In partnership with the Textile Innovation Engine of North Carolina and North Carolina State University, Mars Materials turned its CO2-derived product into a high-quality raw material for producing carbon fiber, according to a news release. According to the company, the product works "exactly like" the traditional chemical used to create carbon fiber that is derived from oil and coal.

Testing showed the end product met the high standards required for high-performance carbon fiber. Carbon fiber finds its way into aircraft, missile components, drones, racecars, golf clubs, snowboards, bridges, X-ray equipment, prosthetics, wind turbine blades and more.

The successful test “keeps a promise we made to our investors and the industry,” Aaron Fitzgerald, co-founder and CEO of Mars Materials, said in the release. “We proved we can make carbon fiber from the air without losing any quality.”

“Just as we did with our water-soluble polymers, getting it right on the first try allows us to move faster,” Fitzgerald adds. “We can now focus on scaling up production to accelerate bringing manufacturing of this critical material back to the U.S.”

Mars Materials, founded in 2019, converts captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals. Investors include Untapped Capital, Prithvi Ventures, Climate Capital Collective, Overlap Holdings, BlackTech Capital, Jonathan Azoff, Nate Salpeter and Brian Andrés Helmick.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Rice launches 'brain economy' initiative at World Economic Forum

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Rice University has launched an initiative that will position “brain capital” as a key asset in the 21st century.

Rice rolled out the Global Brain Economy Initiative on Jan. 21 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“This initiative positions brain capital, or brain health and brain skills, at the forefront of global economic development, particularly in the age of artificial intelligence,” the university said in a news release.

The Rice-based initiative, whose partners are the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, aligns with a recent World Economic Forum and McKinsey Health Institute report titled “The Human Advantage: Stronger Brains in the Age of AI,” co-authored by Rice researcher Harris Eyre. Eyre is leading the initiative.

“With an aging population and the rapid transformation of work and society driven by AI, the urgency has never been greater to focus on brain health and build adaptable human skills—both to support people and communities and to ensure long-term economic stability,” says Amy Dittmar, a Rice provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

This initiative works closely with the recently launched Rice Brain Institute.

In its first year, the initiative will establish a global brain research agenda, piloting brain economy strategies in certain regions, and introducing a framework to guide financial backers and leaders. It will also advocate for public policies tied to the brain economy.

The report from the McKinsey Health Institute and World Economic Forum estimates that advancements in brain health could generate $6.2 trillion in economic gains by 2050.

“Stronger brains build stronger societies,” Eyre says. “When we invest in brain health and brain skills, we contribute to long-term growth, resilience, and shared prosperity.”

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