Should we consider using drugs in the workplace?

This was the most contentious section that I wrote for the book (and which never made it into the final manuscript). So I’m looking forward to seeing how people respond to it. This is the first of four pieces focused on what individuals can do to purposefully diverge from a group. Because conforming won’t make you valuable or take you anywhere new. (If you've already got the book, it would have slotted in on page 60.)

What you see below is the actual transcript of this section. But if you prefer to have your books read to you, scroll down for the video version.

I’ve never been much into drugs myself. I’ve never had anything stronger than a 'jazz cigarette’ and I'm now far too old to think about taking up a crack habit or chasing any kind of dragon. But what may make some people uncomfortable about this section is that I’m not judging anyone for taking drugs. They can open up new avenues of thought. I just prefer other methods of opening up those avenues. But the last section explains that I could maybe have some of those effects without troubling a narcotics cop. So come on a trip with me.

Throughout history, humans have been taking all kinds of substances to change their mental states. These stimulants, relaxants or psychotropics go in and out of fashion over time. Opium was publicly available in Victorian times; and a perfectly acceptable recreational elixir. And these days we're seeing a relaxing of attitudes towards marijuana. Even if you're a staunchly 'just say no' kind of person, you probably still take some kind of mind-altering chemical, whether it's caffeine, alcohol, nicotine or - if this whole topic makes you uptight - Prozac.

Whether you're "buzzed", "trippin'" or "like, totally out of your gourd", the substance you’re using is shunting your thinking out of the norm. Many drugs have the effect of bringing down the barriers that stop you from having and expressing ideas. And all of them alter the way your brain normally works to give you access to new perspectives and concepts.

But please note that I'm not condoning the use of drink and drugs. On the other hand, neither am I condemning it. It's something that's had a long association with the world of creativity. And no look at divergence would be complete - or honest - without talking about it.

Bad bad badvertising

If you've ever watched Mad Men, you'll have noticed how much of the advertising workday seemed to be fuelled by scotch or martini. Rarely is Don Draper seen without a whiskey glass in his hand. And this approach to drinking wasn't entirely fictional. There was a time when it wasn't unusual for an advertising executive to have a drinks cabinet in their office. These were very different days. And I feel fortunate to have caught the tail end of them.

When I started as an advertising creative in the early 90s, it was normal to head out to the pub for lunch. Sometimes we returned to the office, sometimes we didn't. Drinking beer was almost part of our job descriptions and the agency bosses would often join us for a lunchtime tipple. We weren't avoiding work. In fact, it was quite the opposite. We took our sketch pads and marker pens to whichever pub we fancied that day and came up with ideas while we drained our pints. Many of us believe this helped us do our job better.

It all changed sometime around the turn of the century. It seems that the millennium bug bypassed the computers entirely and infected the minds of management with a humourless drive for efficiency and responsibility instead. The lunchtime pint in the pub was replaced by tasteless sandwiches at the desk.

The party was officially over. And the accountants turned off the lights behind us to save money.

100% proof

A few years ago, I was talking about these old glory days with the Editor in Chief of The Drum magazine (over a few drinks, of course). We got together with another former advertising creative director, John Jessop, to run an experiment to see if alcohol does, in fact, help creatives do their job better.

We recruited 20 advertising creatives and split them into two groups. Each of them had three hours to work on an advertising brief. The only difference was one group was allowed to drink as much as they liked while the other group was only allowed soft drinks.

At the end of the slightly messy night, we collected all the ideas the teams had produced. We picked the ten best ideas from each team and visualised them to the same standard so that no one would be able to tell the difference. We then presented these concepts to a group of top creative directors, as well as to members of the public. And the results surprised even us.

The group with an unlimited alcohol supply dramatically outperformed the other team. They came up with four out of the top five ideas, they produced more ideas overall and they churned out ideas more consistently throughout the course of the experiment.

Of course, this wasn't done to rigorous laboratory standards. And it would never make it into an academic journal. It was more about fun than verifiable statistics. (But if there are any university researchers out there who want to run the experiment under more stringent conditions, I'd love to talk.)

However, alcohol isn't the only mind-altering substance that's been used to unlock ideas.

Join me on a trip

There are plenty of people who have famously gone way beyond alcohol in their efforts to unlock new levels of creativity. But I don't think anyone's done that with as much single-minded dedication as Hunter S. Thompson.

In her book HUNTER: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson, E. Jean Carroll outlines the writer's somewhat unconventional routine. His day started at 3 pm with a glass of Chivas Regal, a Dunhill cigarette and the morning papers. This was shortly followed by cocaine, another glass of Chivas and another Dunhill. Before his first cup of coffee, a Dunhill, cocaine, orange juice, Dunhill, cocaine, cocaine and cocaine. That just covers the first two hours. It carried on like this until he was ready to start work at midnight. He'd then write for six hours, powered by a cocktail of narcotics, alcohol and tobacco. Afterwards, he'd unwind in the hot tub with champagne, Dove Bars and some fettuccine Alfredo. Then he'd go to bed around 8 am.

That’s pretty impressive. But he wasn't the only writer to be fuelled by drugs. Aldous Huxley, William S Burroughs and Jack Kerouac were also famous for it. But less celebrated literary drug users were Ayn Rand, John Keats and even the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre.

There's nothing particularly surprising about this. Just about every creative field has its stories of narcotic-powered genius. In contrast, most offices are entirely drug-free. Or are they?

Business deals

In 2011, the film Limitless told the story of a business executive, played by Bradley Cooper, who started using a drug called NZT that unlocked the full potential of his mind. It helped him excel at his job and rise to the top of the finance world. Everything was going great until the side-effects kicked-in and his supply dried up. The story is, of course, just fiction. But it's inspired by fact.

For a number of years Nootropics - or Smart Drugs - have been on the increase in educational institutions. These tend to be prescription drugs, like Adderall, Ritalin and Modafinil that are being used to help increase focus and boost cognitive abilities. The drugs are normally used to treat ADHD or narcolepsy. But they're helping students who haven’t be diagnosed with those conditions to spend more time studying and cram more information into their heads.

A study of Ivy League students in 2014 showed that about 20% of them had had already tried smart drugs. And they didn't view the performance-enhancing effects to be cheating.

The drugs have also made it into the workplace. The magazine Nature surveyed its readers and discovered that one in five of them admitted to taking smart drugs. The US military has experimented with Modafinil to push soldiers beyond the normal limits of human endurance. And a quick look at Google Trends shows that searches for the term 'Nootropics' have been on a steady rise over the last few years.

One thing to note is that all of these drugs are about focusing the mind and enhancing your ability to do stuff. The rise in popularity of smart drugs is a direct result of the current corporate drive towards increased efficiency and utilisation. When you've reached your natural limit and you want to give yourself an advantage in the workplace, mind-enhancers like these are the obvious choice. They're probably not going to help you come up with amazing ideas. In fact, they're more likely to confine you to the norm. And their increased use simply reveals the corporate culture that's stifling fresh thinking in the first place.

Creativity at the tap of a finger

I imagine you've come to the conclusion that a workplace filled with drug-users isn’t a great idea. But what if I told you there's a headset you can wear that will put your brain in the right state for generating ideas or focusing on information?

This amazing device, called PlatoWork, uses a technology called Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation - or tDCS, for short. The headset has in-built electrodes that are aligned to specific areas of the brain. And it uses micro-doses of electricity to regulate the frequency of brain regions.

The technology has been around for years. Again, it's been tested by the American military to help snipers learn faster. And it's showing promise as an effective way of treating depression. The real benefit of tDCS is the fact that it's non-invasive. You simply place the electrodes on your head and it immediately gets to work on manipulating your brain's electrical network. The most you'll feel is a light tingle on your scalp.

"We've created two different types of electrical stimuli; one that enhances creativity and one that enhances focus," says Balder Onarheim, one of the founders of the company. Having scanned the brains of professional thinkers, the device uses electricity to nudge the brain into the optimal state. It does that by increasing activity in some brain areas and reducing it in others.

"There's a region in the back of the head called the precuneus", he explains, "which is where most of our dreams take place but also where you get all types of thought-independent stimuli. Meaning information you didn't ask for. Activity in the precuneus seems to be highly correlated with creative problem solving because if you try to approach a new way of understanding something, you want your brain to be throwing up potentially relevant material for you. While if you want to be focused on tasks, you don't want to think about dinner or calling your mom or whatever other types of unwanted thoughts that might pop up in this precuneus region. With the Plato Work headset, that's one of the areas we are manipulating so it's either easier or harder for the brain to have activity in that region."

Just as humans have developed ways of making it easier to lift things, do maths, remember information and clean up, we'll continue to develop ways of improving our thinking abilities.

With all of these options out there, I currently feel a bit lame sitting here writing this sentence fuelled by nothing but tea.

If you liked this section that didn’t make it into the book, you should see that stuff that actually did! Pick up the book from your local bookstore or Amazon. And let me know what you think.

You can find the other ‘Too Hot’ articles right here:

Diversity - Sheesh! Can we stop talking about diversity now?

Trauma - How to benefit from trauma tearing you in two

Upbringing - How not to be brought down by the way you’re brought up

Illness - The way business views illness is sick

I've also been turning the thinking from the book into masterclasses, workshops and talks. I've been running them all over the world this year. You can find out more about how I work with companies on my website.

And if you like this kind of stuff, please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Just include a message saying that you've read this article.

And here's the video version I promised, if that's your kind of thing.