We know many of the factors that feed innovation: creativity, imagination, expertise, dialogue, hard work, and more. But who knew that we’d also benefit from occasional naps, frequent music, and full-on dancing?!
Thomas Edison enjoyed his work and did a lot of it. He sometimes logged more than 24 hours at a stretch. He often worked three days straight, followed by a couple days off.
But the Wizard of Menlo Park was hardly all work. He seems to have invented the power nap, and he used it often. He’d plop on the nearest horizontal surface, shut his eyes, turn off his ears, and get a quick mental recharge.
He also had a penchant for play. Edison had several of his mechanics install a pipe organ in the main work room. They’d crank it up to mark every big breakthrough. The room would fill with singing, spontaneous dancing, and a thick haze of cigar smoke.
There was even a Menlo Park band, and Edison sometimes served as the grand marshal, leading boisterous parades around equipment-covered tables.
Was all of this just fun and games, or did Edison have something else in mind?
Many of today’s workplaces are full of rules, layers, protocol, and bureaucracy. Edison minimized those things while maximizing the free flow of dialogue and building in plenty of informality and fun. The results speak for themselves: 1,093 patents.
I’m not saying you should cue up the music and grab your dancing shoes. And don’t put in a purchase request for a pipe organ. But I’ll bet there’s a lot you can do to lighten up and have some purposeful fun with co-workers, even if you’re not the person in charge.
Edison made it a priority. Maybe we should too.
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