Pressure can spark ideas, Decoding Efficiency

Why innovation has seasons: Pressure can spark ideas, but space allows them to grow

Guest post by A.J. Thoresen, author of Decoding Efficiency and Innovation: How Systems, Minds, and Nations Shape our Future,

The Human Edge: Imagination and Creativity

Innovation does not flourish in only one season or even in one particular climate, but it often starts with imagination. Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.” That captures the heart of creativity. Logic works within the known; imagination lets us explore the unknown. Logic helps build bridges, write code, solve problems and turn ideas into outcomes. But imagination asks bold questions, defies limits and opens new possibilities. Without it, inventions, music, art and technology would not keep redefining how we live.

Decoding Efficiency

In the age of artificial intelligence this matters even more. The human edge begins where the data ends: where LLMs work with patterns, weights and probabilities, human imagination can reach towards what is less probable, not yet proven, or has never happened before.

Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is just connecting things.” His ability to reimagine technology was not purely logical. It was vision brought to life by skilled engineers. And perhaps the most important connections are sensed before they can be explained.

Six-Sense Innovator

Many describe Steve Jobs as a visionary, but he worked through the senses. He saw beyond what existed. He touched prototypes, turning them in his hands until they felt exactly right. He obsessed over audio fidelity, the click of the iPod wheel and the clarity of music through Apple’s devices.

Even scent mattered. The unboxing of an Apple product was designed to feel clean, crisp and intentional.

And taste? Perhaps not directly. But Jobs often used the language of food, describing products as “delicious” and ideas as something to be “chewed on”. He wanted the experience to feel premium, intuitive and alive.

And perhaps there was a sixth sense at work too—not in the supernatural sense, but as a kind of perceptual clarity, what some might call a third eye. Jobs had an uncanny ability to see what was not yet visible, to sense what people would want before they knew it themselves. It was not simply a guess. It was knowledge shaped by pattern, intuition and intensity. In that sense, Steve Jobs was not just a five-sense innovator. He was a six-sense creator of the future. But seeing what is not yet visible sometimes requires something organisations often struggle to protect: space before certainty.

Space to Wonder and Fresh Eyes

In many organisations, structured thinking is rewarded. Deadlines, roadmaps and measurable outcomes dominate the agenda. But imagination is not always linear. Creativity often begins not with an answer, but with wondering. The danger is that we train people to optimise before they imagine, to seek answers quickly rather than ask better questions.

Some companies recognise this. Jeff Bezos once described wandering as “an essential counterbalance to efficiency”, acknowledging that discovery does not always follow a predictable path. Wondering is not a waste. It is upstream of insight.

Fresh eyes create space. Newcomers enter with questions and observations that established teams may no longer see. But this perspective has a short life. People adapt, familiarity grows, and unusual observations slowly disappear. Fresh eyes are a temporary asset.

Slack offers an example. It began as an internal communication tool inside a failed gaming company. When the game failed, the team recognised that the tool they had built for themselves was the stronger idea. As Slack developed, they invited other companies to use it, watched where the product struggled and repeatedly refined it through fresh feedback.

Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield understood the value of a beginner’s mind: the longer we live inside a system, the harder it becomes to see it as someone encountering it for the first time. Innovation sometimes begins because someone still notices. But not every new perspective comes from space. And sometimes pressure forces us to see what comfort allows us to overlook.

Crises, Constraints and Obsession

We should not assume that innovation flourishes only in ideal conditions. We often think creativity needs time, money and freedom. But sometimes it is their absence that sharpens the mind. When time, materials or options are limited, familiar paths close. And we are forced to look differently.

Apollo 13 became one of the clearest examples. In 1970, an oxygen tank exploded in space, damaging the spacecraft and turning a planned lunar mission into a fight for survival. NASA engineers faced an extreme constraint: solve the problem using only what the astronauts already had onboard. With no room for error, they improvised a carbon dioxide filter from plastic bags, cardboard and duct tape. It was not elegant, but it worked. Under extraordinary pressure, necessity narrowed the problem and ingenuity found a way through.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed the same force. Vaccine development that normally takes years was compressed as trials ran in parallel, regulators accelerated reviews and scientific teams shared information with urgency. Crisis changed the pace because time carried its own cost.

Constraint does not automatically create innovation. Pressure can also overwhelm judgement and narrow imagination too far. But at the right moment, it can cut through distraction and force clarity. When the usual route disappears, we sometimes discover another.

Constraints do not simply limit what is possible; they can reveal what is essential.

Pressure can also come from within. For founders and innovators, obsession can become an engine of focus, persistence and vision, allowing them to stay with a problem long after others would have moved on.

Obsessive focus notices details others miss, filters distraction and keeps energy fixed on improvement. But almost everything has a trade-off, and obsession is no exception.

The same intensity that fuels insight can narrow perspective. Focus can become tunnel vision; persistence can harden into inflexibility. Psychologists distinguish between harmonious and obsessive passion: one can sustain effort with balance, while the other may drive achievement at the cost of well-being, relationships and perspective.

The point is not to reject obsession, but to understand how it is channelled. At its best, it pushes people beyond what others believe possible. At its worst, it can exhaust the person and distort the very judgement that made the obsession valuable in the first place.

Intensity alone is not enough. The most effective innovators know when to hold on—and when to step back.

Same Mind in Different Seasons

Innovation is often seen as a matter of systems and strategy. But beneath both is something more personal: the emotional weather inside us. Stress, urgency, inspiration and obsession shape how we think, create and lead.

Some people sharpen under pressure. Others need calm, when the mind is free and there is room to wonder. What is less acknowledged is that the same person can be both. We change with time and circumstances, shaped by evolving ideas, external events and internal sparks.

The myth of the always-obsessed genius or the endlessly calm creator is just that—a myth.

Real innovation moves through seasons. Some moments demand pressure and persistence; others call for stillness, distance and space. The art is not choosing one over the other, but recognising when the season has changed—and having the courage to change with it.

A.J. Thoresen is the author of Decoding Efficiency and Innovation: How Systems, Minds, and Nations Shape our Future, shortlisted for the 2026 Business Book Awards in the Smart Thinking category.

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