She finds this lightness, this relinquishing of control, difficult to achieve, especially since it cannot be accomplished by simple effort. Her mind does not naturally float about without direction: it is a machine designed for analytic thought.

“I like my world, and particularly my inner world, to be organized,” she says. “I like filing systems. But the whole process of writing novels is the opposite of that—it’s do not label, do not define, do not decide, leave everything loose. You have to say to yourself, I take my hands off, I let my unconscious work for me. It’s desperately uncomfortable!

Difficult as it is for her to be loose, it is even more difficult for her to be lazy; but that, too, is something she has had to learn to become, because the best ideas come to her when her mind is idle.

…. what Schön called ‘reflection in action’ -

He discovered that the work of skilled professionals did not consist in having a sudden revelation, but in trying things out, talking things through, playing about, testing ideas and so allowing the ‘right’ solution to emerge.

To do this as a group requires that its members practise certain habits. They need to listen well, to avoid becoming too attached to their own ideas, to accept uncertainty and to take risks.

Holding the conversational space open until a consensus emerges, and staying open to data or observations that invite us to consider that we may have been mistaken, are not things that all agency or marketing people find easy to do.

But it may be that the best chance of improving the quality of advertising decisions lies in paying attention to these processes and seeking to improve them.