Archimedes’ Bathtub: How to Bring Awe to Your ‘A-Ha!’ Moment
During perhaps the most famous bath time in history, Archimedes saw the water level change as he dipped into the tub and, in a flash of insight, realized he could use the same phenomenon to test the purity of gold.
The Greek polymath immediately leaped from the tub and ran through the streets, dripping wet and naked, yelling: “Eureka! Eureka!”
That story is the archetypal “a-ha!” moment — a transformative shift in perspective and a burst of creativity that we all try to cultivate and capture as we work to make our businesses more innovative.
There’s much more to innovation and creativity—both of which are essential competencies for today’s successful leaders—than simply an accumulation of Eurekas.
To successfully drive creativity across our organizations, we need to connect those “a-ha!” moments with the broader system of which they’re part—and find our way to a place where “a-ha” moments are infused with a sense of awe at the beauty and power of the world around us, and the ecosystem of which we’re part.
From ‘A-ha!’ to Awe
Part of what’s needed is the ability to bridge between your initial “a-ha!” moment and a sense of awe at its potential implications as it ripples out across the broader ecosystem. That’s often harder than it sounds: when you first have an amazing new idea, you tend to focus on it to the exclusion of everything else. (When you invent a new hammer, everything looks like a nail!)
What’s needed is the ability to see the interconnections between your new idea and the bigger system around you. It’s helpful, for instance, to recognize that even your “new” idea is the product of many other ideas and insights. We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants, and remembering that can help us see how our ideas can fit into and interact with the world around us and thereby reconfigure themselves or change over time.
That’s a humbling thought. But that’s what makes it so powerful: having a sense of our own smallness and our place in the much bigger universe around us lets us appreciate the beauty and richness of the world around us. And that sense of interconnectedness is needed to turn “a-ha!” moments into transformative and enduring innovations.
Beyond the Bathtub
To achieve that, it isn’t enough to simply sit in the bathtub and enjoy your moment of inspiration — or even to run through the streets celebrating it.
Instead, you must turn to others and seek new perspectives on your latest brainwave. (It’s okay to put some clothes on first!) Try asking other people what they make of the thing you’ve discovered — do they see it the same way you do?
We then need to draw those insights back inward and turn to other sources of creativity within ourselves. A flash of inspiration burns brightly but briefly — but if we can connect it with the beauty we see beyond ourselves and the creativity burning within, then we can turn it into a lasting and purposeful driver of joy and fulfillment.
The point here is that ideas don’t have much value when they exist in isolation. But they gain value exponentially as they connect with other ideas and deeper human values. By seeing and harnessing those interconnections — both within and without — leaders can make the magic happen and turn fleeting Eureka moments into lasting value anchored in humbleness, awe, and wonder.
