Sync or sink: The neuroscience of sequenced innovation
How sequencing creative work helps teams swing, not stumble.
Innovation sessions can start with a bang... and end in a brainstorm hangover. Everyone’s got sticky notes. Ideas are flying. Someone says “Let’s disrupt something!” But pretty soon, the energy feels more like a traffic jam than a jazz jam. No one's sure what just happened — only that it was... a lot.
Sound familiar?
That’s because we’re often doing everything at once. Dreaming and deciding. Exploring and executing. Converging before we’ve even diverged. It's like walking on stage and soloing without knowing the key.
But here’s the groove: new research confirms what many of us have felt intuitively: it’s not just what teams learn that matters — it’s when and in what order. Innovation isn't just a matter of effort or creativity. It’s a rhythm.
In a study of over 160 teams, researchers Jean-François Harvey, Johnathan R. Cromwell, Kevin J. Johnson, and Amy C. Edmondson (yes, that Amy Edmondson — of “psychological safety” fame) found that high-performing teams didn’t just mix learning styles. They sequenced them intentionally. Like a great jazz band, they didn’t try to solo all at once. They knew when to riff and when to pause.
The four learning modes
The researchers identified four types of learning behaviors that support innovation:
Experimental learning – Trying things, failing fast, prototyping, brainstorming.
Vicarious learning – Borrowing insights from others. Why reinvent the wheel?
Contextual learning – Scanning the environment for trends, shifts, and patterns.
Reflexive learning – Slowing down to reflect, digest, align, and reset.
Here’s the juicy part: when teams blurred the line between reflection and high-octane ideation, the process stalled. Without rhythm and sequencing, creativity risks turning into cognitive noise — stimulating, but not always productive.
But when teams gave each learning mode its own space, momentum built naturally. Confusion turned into clarity. Friction became flow. Team Alpha in the study looked like they were cruising on jazz-mode productivity. Team Omega? More like a Spotify playlist set on shuffle.
Why this matters for you — and your brain
From a neuroscience perspective, this makes perfect sense. The brain needs time to consolidate and integrate learning. Just like sleep helps us form long-term memories, reflection helps teams turn activity into insight. We can’t just inhale new information — we have to exhale.
If your meetings constantly shift between idea generation, critique, goal setting, and “quick wins,” you're likely exhausting your team’s prefrontal cortex. That’s where decision-making, planning, and working memory live. Overload it, and you’ll get surface-level thinking or group paralysis.
The Double Diamond: A map for innovation flow
One of my favorite tools for pacing innovation is the Double Diamond model. Originally developed by the British Design Council, it’s built on two natural creative rhythms: divergent and convergent thinking.
Here’s how it lines up beautifully with the research:
First Diamond: Explore the Problem
Diverge: Contextual learning (What’s going on?) + Vicarious learning (What have others done?)
Converge: Reflexive learning (What’s the real challenge here?)
Second Diamond: Develop the Solution
Diverge: Experimental learning (How might we solve it?)
Converge: Reflexive + Contextual learning again (What’s working? What do we commit to?)
This isn’t about rigid phases — it’s about being conscious of what mode you’re in, and not mixing too many at once. The Double Diamond helps teams pace their energy and attention so ideas can emerge, evolve, and land.
It’s basically conducting the learning rhythms instead of DJ-ing them on shuffle.
Three practical shifts to try
You don’t need to change your whole innovation process. Start here:
Name the phase
Say it out loud: “We’re exploring right now.” Or “This is convergence mode — time to make decisions.” It sets the tone.Use time as a boundary
Don’t brainstorm and critique in the same session. Split them up. Let your team breathe between modes.Add structured reflection points
Before rushing to action, build in “sense-making” time. Ask: What are we learning? What feels aligned? What are we not seeing yet?
Lead like a conductor
Innovation is not a grind — it’s a groove.
From a neuroscience point of view, when you give the brain what it needs (clarity, pacing, pattern recognition, pause), you don’t just get better ideas. You get safer teams, better collaboration, and more meaningful impact.
So instead of throwing everyone into a whirlwind of sticky notes and sprints, set the tempo. Guide the shifts. Let each mode have its moment.
Because real innovation?
It doesn’t come from doing more.
It comes from sequencing better.
Thank you so much Jean-François Harvey, Johnathan R. Cromwell, Kevin J. Johnson, and Amy C. Edmondson for great insights!
Soundtrack for groovy collaboration
As you probably noticed by now, reading all the quirky jazz references above, I love jazz and I think music unlocks so much wonderful energy. So, want to get into the groove while working with innovation and rhythm? Tune into my Spotify playlist:
It’s a curated vibe for creative flow, deep work, reflection and good foot-tapping energy.