“Creativity is just connecting things,” Apple’s Steve Jobs once commented. “When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.”
To Steve Jobs’s observation, neuroscientists can now add that plentiful sleep is a major factor. Sleep helps in the “seeing” and “connecting.” In a fascinating experiment, Ullrich Wagner of the University of Lubeck in Germany assigned his study subjects a mathematical puzzle. It consisted of a string of eight numbers. Wagner provided the participants with two rules for generating a second string of numerals. They were told to work through these problems using the rules. The miserably laborious exercise looked a lot like doing long division for an hour or more. But the sneaky researchers included a hidden rule. A shortcut could be used to quickly arrive at the target answer for all the problems. After the initial training, some participants were allowed to get a good night’s sleep. Others were less lucky. They remained awake. When everyone returned to the problem eight hours later, those who had slumbered were far more likely to discover the shortcut — almost 60 percent returned with the aha moment. But among those who stayed awake, despite their total effort, only a paltry 20 percent were able to figure out the hidden rule. That’s a threefold difference in creative solutions afforded by sleep. Try asking any employer which group they would like to hire.Still, of the many companies I’ve interacted with, none pay real attention to the sleep quality of their employees. They run them down even in a retreat. It’s all too common for a company to host an executive conference in some exotic location. They finish the first day with a late dinner, and they’re out drinking later still. People don’t hit the hay until well past midnight, after clearing their email inbox. Then, the next day, they’re expected to head for a run at 7:00 a.m. in the name of health and well-being. By 8:30 a.m., everyone is back in the conference room to develop some “creative solutions” and “think big.” Why would anyone expect this to work?
So Bertolini added an incentive system. Aetna rolled out the option to earn employee bonuses for getting more sleep, using fitness trackers like Fitbit. The company pays $25 a night if an employee gets seven or more hours of uninterrupted sleep for 20 nights in a row. That’s right —they’re getting paid to sleep, up to a total of $500.
13 comments
So true. Great work!
Excellent article, Howard!
Thank you, Henry! I am glad that you like the piece. Also thank you so much for referring to Matthew Walker’s work. He’s such an inspiration.
Really brilliant. Thank you. Really (really) look after the team because they are the most important thing the business has. Get smarter about what the customers really need (better health not better insurance) and you have a great chance of winning.
Fabulous article. Matthew Walker….
I am 78 y old. Sleeping 8 yrs is great. Sleeping less … is pretty regular Sliding Scale of Titedness, slow stinking, low Energy, unable to read and Risk of falling asleep while driving.
Wonderful article Howard! We really need to give ourselves a good sleep because creativity needs it!
Absolutely fascinating program for employees from Aetna. A good night’s sleep can really pay off – literally!
Great read!