Seinfeld brilliantly details the core molecular structure of the creative process: equal parts idea generation and scientific testing. And he approaches the process with yeoman’s determination.

It’s an enormous mistake to wait for lightning to strike. Seinfeld’s relentless approach to developing new material — and his mindset in so doing — gives him an incredible advantage in the creative process.

Entrepreneurial endeavors are fraught with risk. Rigorous, scientific experimentation is the best way to resolve the uncertainty.

Imposter syndrome can be crippling. One of the things I’ve wrestled with over the last dozen years is the question, “Who am I to be doing (xyz)? Don’t folks know I’m just… me?” Mo Willems experience offers a key.

Whitney Burks is one of the most creative people I know. She boasts prodigious output across a varied stream of responsibilities and interests. Her secret: “obscene, ostentatious deadlines.”

Second City has launched the careers of Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Adam McKay, Seth Meyers, and Amy Poehler, just to name a few. They’re masters at the art of ideation and experimentation. When they’re developing their shows, one of the most dependable tactics they employ is known as “Taboo Day.”

Ato Essandoh is a New York-based actor and the co-host of the podcast Radio Zamunda. I was instantly drawn to his warm, openness, and curiosity. He told me about his regular Friday night gatherings of artists and friends in New York. They often challenge themselves to make something together, without regard for the final product: “It's OK if it looks like we made a mistake…”

If you’re exploring, efficiency shouldn’t be your goal. Efficiency is for black belts; it is not for special operations. Exploration, by definition, is not efficient. As Paul Graham has famously said, “Do Things That Don’t Scale.” But if you’re not careful, the conditioning of the efficiency-oriented part of the organization will influence your objectives.

Block time to commission and review experiments because routine responsibilities are constantly calling, and so the “new” has a tendency to get pushed to the fringes. It’s very easy to deprioritize an uncertain new thing in the light of a certain fire drill.

We spend so much time talking about the merits of new ideas, and the potential gains associated with them, that it’s easy to forget the impact of the conviction to NOT do something. But those are equally valuable insights! My feeling is that those points belong on the scoreboard every bit as much as the data that suggests “success.”

“Over time, I’ve moved from thinking, ‘There’s no such thing as a bad idea,’ into, ‘Well, yeah, there are some bad ideas.’ And now, I am firmly convinced there’s no such thing as a good idea. Every idea is a bad idea. No idea performs the way you expect once you collide it with reality. And the more I learn, the more I believe that it’s true…”

The thing that shocks most people is that MBA’s, who’ve likely visited the Eiffel Tower, and have a fair grasp on concepts like gravity — would be so categorically outperformed by children. Having run the activity scores of times, the simple way I’d describe the difference in mindset is, “Kindergartners know they don’t know the answer; MBA’s assume they do.” That simple mindset difference has profound implications for how teams approach the challenge…

In 1925, Dick Drew had an idea. As a sandpaper salesman, he often found himself in auto body shops selling to mechanics who needed to smooth their repairs. Somewhat absentmindedly, he noticed that the butcher paper mechanics used to outline paint jobs would routinely ruin the carefully-detailed lines, and wondered, “What if I could make a tape that wouldn’t tear the paint off the cars?” After all, it’d be something else to sell the bodyshops he served…

Senior leader earnestly trying to bring tools of experimentation into her work: “I’m still struggling with when to experiment. Just take this week, for example: Monday was a holiday, and between Tuesday and today (mid-day Thursday), I’m on meeting #29”…

The concept of experimentation-driven-learning relieves a great deal of the pressure in the midst of expectations of perfection. It lowers the perceived risk of taking action because it’s a declaration of figuring out. There is a downside to such freedom, though: folks can easily forget they were doing-in-order-to-learn…

Henrik Werdelin is a legitimate candidate for most interesting man in the world. He’s also a fastidious notebook-keeper, and surprisingly, -trasher. But before he chunks them, Henrik does something very important…

This memory of Steve Jobs reminded me of a tactic that was known as “Tom Sawyering” around the Xerox PARC offices. An informal process of socializing ideas to build momentum…

"I was obsessed with not getting trapped by DVDs the way AOL got trapped, the way Kodak did, the way Blockbuster did…" - Reed Hastings, Founder & CEO of Netflix…

“We hit a manufacturing snag that threatened to stall production of a critical new product by 18 months. Over the weekend, we assembled a ‘swat team’ who solved the problem in just a couple of days.”

My friend Philipe Barreaud runs the Customer Innovation Lab for Michelin. He’s the kind of guy who tells the technicians to “hang the sign upside down” in the main office, just to signal the value of seeing things differently and challenging people’s perceptions…