What Cooking Can Teach You About Innovation and Creativity – Harvard Business Publishing

The first time I made chocolate chip cookies they were so hard my husband nearly broke a tooth.

When I was recently married, I decided to try a new cookie recipe: a simple chocolate chip cookie. As it was the first time I prepared them, I looked for a recipe and followed it to the letter. The smell and appearance of the cookies were spectacular, but when they cooled down and I gave them a taste they were rock hard!

Luckily, not everything I’ve cooked has been a failure. I’ve been cooking since I was 12 years old and I continue to experiment with recipes and techniques.

The cooking process for me is the clearest example of how we develop widely applicable skills while doing something we love. I think cooking not only develops our learning agility, but it also builds analytical skills and mathematical thinking. Among all the skills we acquire in the process of cooking, I think creativity and innovation are the most powerful.

So what has cooking taught me about innovation and creativity?

Learn from failure

I consider the chocolate cookie story as a powerful example of learning from mistakes and being resilient. We will not always succeed in our first effort. In cooking, often you need to try several recipes or different techniques until you get perfect cookies that melt in your mouth. Being open to learn from failures is key for developing a creative and innovative mind-set. And I’ve applied that learning in the workplace.

When I was made a manager for the first time at a large global retail company, I needed to lead a senior and tenured group of individuals. At first, I relied on best approaches and procedures for managing people from the company’s manual. But as I grew into the role and experimented, practiced, and learned from some experiences that did not go as planned, I developed my personal style and even the handling of difficult employee situations became a natural ability.

Create an environment that fosters innovation

Cooking has taught me that experimentation and continuous learning require a safe environment, where you know that it is okay to make mistakes, and nothing serious happens if you fail. After the bad cookies, my husband made a few jokes but told me that he knew I would find a good formula if I kept trying, giving me the confidence to continue experimenting.

In his article 4 Ways to Build an Innovative Team, Greg Satell references Google’s “Project Aristotle” and the work of Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson on the importance of psychological safety in a wide variety of contexts. Findings show that a safe environment not only promotes a better atmosphere but also increases the capacity for learning, experimentation, and innovation.

Take advantage of the resources you have

Over the years I have observed that when I cook my mind opens up, and I begin to see different possibilities for the resources I have available in my kitchen. This skill has been especially important when I work with a client on a new leadership development experience. First, I decide on the type of experience (or meal!) to prepare, then I carefully select the best variety of learning elements (readings, videos, case studies, applications, etc.), which are the spices that will make the experience unique and will align to the tastes of the participants. Finally, I cook these “ingredients” using a well-tested technique to ensure we get the best results from each ingredient and create a transformative learning experience.

I am always amazed to see how people with the same ingredients can create different, unique, and delicious creations. This capacity for learning can become a competitive advantage for individuals and companies as it helps challenge the status-quo and current processes to find new and exciting ways of doing things.

Our hobbies and interests can really teach us leadership skills in new ways. In my experience, when I have been trying to solve a problem for a while and I have not succeeded, or when I need to get into a creative space to develop a leadership program, I cook. Cooking helps my mind disconnect from the vicious thinking loop and gives me the space to find new approaches to solve the problem from a different perspective.

I invite you to put on an apron and dare to try new aromas and textures—sweet, bitter, salty—to create your own recipes and practice until you master them. Hopefully, there will be few rocks and a lot of sweet rewards in your learning journey.

How have you applied learning from your hobbies to your leadership approach?

Lizeth Aranda is a senior learning solutions manager for Latin America with Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected].