The Dance of Creativity: Open vs. Closed Modes

How switching between focus and playfulness can lead to breakthroughs

In 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver was spending most of his days in St. Paul, Minnesota working in 3M’s central research lab. His assigned project was to develop a super-strong adhesive for aircraft construction.

The adhesive needed to withstand extreme conditions faced by aircrafts. Silver’s time in the lab was spent experimenting with different chemical combinations.

On one particular day in the lab, Silver mixed together two monomers and a reactant. But this time he decided to add an unusual amount of one chemical to the mix. Instead of creating a strong adhesive, Silver had accidentally produced a clear substance about the size of a paper fiber that acted like a tiny, weak glue droplet.

Silver immediately recognized that he created something unusual.