Why a Crisis Frees Us of Our Old Mental Models
When old routines are disrupted, it’s easier than ever to take risks
Social media feeds during the pandemic have been inundated with people pursuing new creative activities like learning foreign languages, starting a TikTok account, developing calligraphy skills, or adventures in sourdough baking. Creativity is booming everywhere you look, including within companies. As The Economist noted, “the pandemic is liberating firms to experiment with radical new ideas.”
Consider Kevin and Laurie Hommema, a married doctor and research and development scientist who came up with a way to disinfect medical masks. It all started during a conversation following dinner at their home in Columbus, Ohio, where they live with their two young daughters. Laurie, a family physician, mentioned that she and her colleagues were deeply concerned about the shortages of N95 masks and thought aloud about how health care workers “could just reuse them.” Kevin, a research scientist at Battelle, jumped in to say that washing medical masks might in fact be possible using a process he recalled deploying from a decontamination project years ago.
After some rapid back and forth exchange of ideas, the husband-wife duo had designed a working prototype, right there at their dining table. Before turning in…
