Daydreaming Leaders

Decisions, timelines, deadlines, and constant requests for information bombard a leader constantly. From the start of the day to the end, the pull and demand on your time and resources is overwhelming. And the troubles which plague our healthcare systems are overly complex and interconnected.

Today, we need leaders who have a passion to make a difference, who provide innovative solutions, understand the impact to patient safety, and remember we operate in a resource constrained environment. “Do more with less” has been the mantra in many organizations and it doesn’t seem to be letting up.

How do you work and come up with relevant, workable solutions to the challenges you face? This becomes particularly challenging when you are talking about the challenges which have baffled you and your organization for a while. Think about that for a moment.

I’d love to share a secret with you. Daydream!

A few years ago, I was talking with a leader of a large healthcare organization. As we were sharing some of the challenges between his and my organization, we found we had many similar challenges and we were discussing how we were going about working a solution. When he shared a how he worked this one problem I was struggling with, strategic planning, I was floored by the simple and actionable solution that was working for him.

When I asked where he heard about this solution to fix the problem the way he did, he said I just thinking one day and the idea came to me. Specifically he stated, I wasn’t actually thinking, I was daydreaming.

Daydreaming.

The opportunity to hear about this was impactful to my leadership development. As my colleague continued, he shared he takes time daily to daydream about some of his problems and look for solutions which might work that have not been tried. Or he looks for a different angle to look at the problem to see if a solution presents itself.

In article written by Christopher Bergland in Psychology Today, Bergland highlights the impact and importance of leaders to daydream about challenges they face. Bergland states daydreaming “allows my mind to wander in ways that helps me connect-the-dots of seemingly unrelated ideas and can lead to “Eureka! I’ve found it” breakthroughs.” This daydreaming allows all the information you know to be digested and moved without conscience direction, but free thinking.

Elle Metz states in an article for BBC, that “Daydreaming is how we access our big-picture state of mind,” Fries says. “When you’re in a daydreaming state of mind, you can visualise or simulate your own version of events.” In the idle minds of a person, you have the ability to connect with more than facts, but also with memories, feelings, thoughts, and experiences from other life events and create a solution not previously connected.

Leaders spend a ton of time gathering information and data. There is great truth to the saying “analysis paralysis” for leaders. We have more access to information now then we have ever had and still we want more. And once we have all this information what do we do with it to make a solution? The insecurities we feel as leaders can lend to us demanding and wanting more information when the addition of new information really doesn’t assist us in making a decision.

Having time to daydream is critical. We are not talking about drifting off in your next boss’ meeting or while you are driving down the interstate at 70 miles per hour. This “focused” daydreaming is a skill set which takes a little practice but could produce for you powerful results in solving challenges.

Daydreaming, allowing your mind to idle and just “be” is hard for many leaders. Daydreaming is hard because these leaders are action leaders, they are get things done leaders, they are leaders who always accomplish and would not waste time daydreaming. In the movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, the character of General Custer accurately describes theses leaders when he states “we are Americans; we don’t think, we do!” These same leaders will probably be the same leaders who offer the same solution to every problem, repeat generic solutions with no impact, or require more and more data in hopes of finding the right data point to give them an answer.

When you take the time to relax and daydream, it is not the prelude to a nap, though I think many of us could use it! An idle mind or daydreaming is really a focused relax thinking, loosening the controls of where you mind goes when you are thinking about a problem. It is a time to let all that you’ve read and heard and let it marinate in its own way. You don’t control where it goes and all thoughts are valid.

For me, I usually find my best daydreaming time is when I’m running or taking a walk. I put on that iPod and I go. And I let my mind “percolate and marinate” on a problem I’m dealing with at work. I take different perspectives of looking at the problem: as the leader, a supporter, of my enemy, with a critical eye of an auditor, and one view as a creative and outlandish thespian. What would those parts of me say to the problem? In many instances, there are ideas which come out of these times which have produced some of the best results in some leadership challenges.

This daydreaming time allows me to contemplate, tear apart my ideas, put them together in a different fashion, and to look for what is not working. Many times I find it is how I approached the challenge which keeps me from a solution. I let other determine the problem and maybe what they have identified is not the challenge. Releasing yourself to look at it from less constraints opens more options.

Simply put, daydreaming is a viable option for leaders for creative solutions to problems you face. Simply put, it takes 3 steps:

1. Focused Study: you have a problem, you need to have your data. When you tackle any problem, you need to find the information about the problem. You don’t want to base a decision purely off your gut or what you know. You need to put effort in to learning all you can about the problem.
2. Focused Daydreaming: then you “percolate and marinate” on your problem. You daydream. Take time to go out and just let the thoughts in your noggin intertwine and start playing with options. You’ve daydreamed before. This time though instead of just thinking about the next family vacation, you think about the problem at work. What are some different perspectives on the issue, what really is the issue and are you missing a simple solution to a problem.
3. Practice: set time aside to regularly daydream. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. I have truly found my time of focused daydreaming as a vital part of solving problems in my organization. It allows me not to be constrained by group think, it employs my education, experiences, and knowledge in a nonlinear fashion and lets me explore opportunities which I had not considered before.

Take a chance. Start by letting your mind relax and daydream about your future. Take the time to invest in finding innovative, relevant, and actionable ideas which before were not known to you, or potentially anyone. Then share them.

Edgar Allan Poe stated “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

Leading with you,

Dean

References:

2016. Bergland (2016), Daydreaming: Not All Mind Wandering Fuels Creative Thinking, Psychology Today, March 30, 2016. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201603/daydreaming-not-all-mind-wandering-fuels-creative-thinking
2017. Metz (2017), Why Idle Moments Are Crucial, BBC, April 14, 2017. http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170414-why-idle-moments-are-crucial-for-creativity

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