People often come up with their best ideas when time is tight-at least thafs what many executives assume. The trouble /s, as new research reveals, it's not true.

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RULY BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS tarely hatch overnight. Consider, for example, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which had a protracted evolution of its own. Darwin spent decades reading scientific literature, making voyages on the HMS Beagle to the Galapagos and other exotic destinations, carrying out painstakingly detailed observations, and producing thousands of pages of notes on those observations and his ideas for explaining them. It's inconceivable that his breakthrough would have occurred if he'd tried to rush it. In business, too, there are striking examples ofthe value of having relatively unstructured, unpressured time to create and develop new ideas. Scientists working at AT&T's legendary Bell Labs, operating under its corporate philosophy that big ideas take time, produced world-changing innovations including the transistor and the laser beam. Their ingenuity earned the researchers several Nobel prizes. They, like Darwin, had the time to think creatively. But we can all point to examples where creativity seemed to be sparked by extreme time pressure. In 1970, during Apollo 13's flight to the moon, a crippling explosion occurred on board, damaging the air filtration system and leading to a dangerous buildup of carbon dioxide in the cabin. If the system could not be fixed or replaced, the astronauts would be dead within a few hours. Back at NASA mission control in Houston, virtually all engineers, scientists, and technicians immediately focused their attention on the problem. Working with a set of materials identical to those on board the spacecraft, they desperately tried to build a filtration system that the astronauts might be able to replicate. Every conceivable