How Aha! Really Happens

How do companies innovate?  Look at Google, widely admired as a great innovator.  The company offers toys in the lobby, beanbag chairs, and game rooms.  Isn’t that what other companies should do, too?

The answer is no.  These methods are derived from an inaccurate theory of creativity:  that people need to turn off their analytical left brain and turn on their creative right brain to produce new ideas. 

In fact, as we will see, Google’s founders did not come up with the original idea for their business by using these methods.  Instead, they applied a ver.....