Are your team members creative Sparklers or innovative Trailblazers?
Published on 21 March 2024 • Written by Dr Lisa Colledge
Everyone is either a Sparkler or a Trailblazer. We are each hard-wired to behave in one way or the other, and the secret to success in change, whether driving change through innovation or responding to change by adaptation, is to make sure your organizational culture expects and enables both types to collaborate.
Three key takeaways
Each of us is hard-wired with a preferential stellar style — Sparkler or Trailblazer. We can learn elements of the other, but it takes us more effort to work in that way.
- Sparklers are great at coming up with novel ideas because they easily see patterns and combine facts in new ways.
- Trailblazers are fantastic at evaluating and executing ideas because they can stick to a plan and focus on the long-term outcome.These stellar styles underpin humanity’s success. Over hundreds of thousands of years, we have had to become fantastic at exploration, and at using what we discovered. The solution was to specialize, with some people being naturals at exploration, the Sparklers, and others at utilization, the Trailblazers. This division meant that adaptations making people ever better at their style could be layered on. The price was that success required two styles and cooperation between them.
Trying to create a new solution to drive innovation and respond to change is a waste of time. It’s already there, within all of us. Organizations can better spend their time and money making sure that they have optimal conditions for this in-built solution to deliver. It takes strategic effort to make sure that you organizational culture enables Sparkler- and Trailblazer-styles to reinforce each other rather than wear each other down, but the benefits are there for the taking.
Back to the question. Are your team members Sparklers or Trailblazers?
You’re a Sparkler if you think differently: you find it easy to come up with new ideas. You’ll happily connect information together from different domains. You’re probably described as imaginative or curious, or as having an original way of looking at things. You’re good at looking beyond the obvious conclusions and patterns, and at challenging the status quo.
You’re a Trailblazer if you do things differently: you’re great at transforming ideas into reality. You are skilled at evaluating ideas, and refining and building them. You won’t let yourself get distracted from the goal by fleeting opportunities, because your eyes are on the longer-term gain. Others might say you’re outcome-oriented and ambitious.
Research into the way we behave, how we adapt to life circumstances and our socio-cultural environment, and our patterns of brain activation, indicate that Sparkling and Trailblazing aren’t hard-wired into the same person. That’s not to say that Sparklers can’t learn elements of Trailblazing behavior, but it will take Sparklers more energy to Trailblaze and they might not enjoy it very much; of course, the same is also true the other way round.
It’s easy to see, when I describe it like this, that your organization can only be great at change if you have a mix of Sparklers and Trailblazers. Neither group can really get to grips with change on their own. If you’re leading an organization that wants to do anything new, the best approach you can take it to make sure you’re attracting and hiring both Sparklers and Trailblazers and that your working culture expects and enables both to thrive and to work together effectively.
Search and survival
There is a large body of research into search, that has been contributed to by scientists from many domains including decision-sciences, artificial intelligence, attention, and memory. Search is looking for and delivering a goal in uncertain circumstances, and it involves a trade-off between exploring the unknown and utilizing the known. The theory of successful search is called ‘Exploration versus Exploitation’. It applies to any kind of search, whether that is in the physical environment, the quest for meaning, or the drive to find solutions to problems.
Humankind is amazing at search. We have navigated enormous changes in our environment over hundreds of thousands of years and adapted to them by search: migration to new locations; building our environment; making things easier by developing tools; and better cooperation through cultural means like language and tools. The new Theory of Complementary Cognition pulls search, Sparklers and Trailblazers together to explain how we have ended up being equipped to do this so well. The theory says that humankind is specialized for search and exemplifies the optimal outcome that offers the best chance of survival in a highly unpredictable environment: divide and conquer.
How does it all work?
Brains can work in either Sparkling-mode or Trailblazing-mode; they can’t do both at the same time because the modes use different neuronal networks, and whichever one is active inhibits the other one. This modularization of modes between people has created enough spare capacity to layer on further adaptations that make each mode truly incredible at doing their part in thriving in the face of change.
The Sparkler brain network reigns supreme at exploring new horizons, and recognizing patterns in both the big picture and the details. It keeps more mental concepts out of our automated brain processes (the auto-pilot that makes you drive to your kids’ school instead of the supermarket when you’re not thinking about it) so that they stay available to our conscious thought processes which combine them in unusual ways to create new ideas.
The Trailblazer brain network is amazing at anything goal-orientated, requiring strategy and staying the course to implement. It has developed to stick to the plan and not get side-tracked by distractions, and at resisting some gratification now in order to eventually get more at a later date (like saying no to one gin and tonic now so that you will be able to get two next week).
Not surprisingly given the different mechanics, Sparklers and Trailblazers have different preferences in how they receive, process, and communicate information, and will choose to work differently if they have the option. It takes some effort to make sure that their diverse styles reinforce each other rather than wear each other down, but the benefits are so transformative that in my opinion every organization should make this a strategic priority.
You can read more about this transformative potential here or feel free to connect with me if you’d prefer to discuss it in virtual or actual person.
What’s in a name?
I hope that what you have read so far has made you excited about the possibilities for your organization of ensuring you have a good balance of Sparklers and Trailblazers, and that they are set up to collaborate successfully. I want to close this piece by asking you to hold on to that feeling while I apply some other labels that are often used for what I’ve described. They don’t change the facts of what I’ve written about, but I feel that they are so value-laden that it is best to confront them head-on so that we are mentally armed to face the sentiment when we encounter them.
Neuroscientists refer to the Sparklers’ dominant brain network is the ‘default mode’. Cognitive psychologists refer to their thinking as bottom-up, driven by sensory input, resulting in reward-driven and risk-taking outcomes. The ability to consciously find and combine concepts is called mind-wandering.
Trailblazers’ dominant brain network is called ‘executive functioning’ in neuroscience. Cognitive psychologists talk about top-down thinking, and control of instinct. This mode is all about self-regulation and delaying gratification, about problem solving, planning and resource management.
Scientifically, where only evidence and not emotion should influence conclusions, these terms are accurate and do a good job of implying what they mean. Socially, though, the terms have taken on other nuances of meaning. It is desirable to say that our children or partner or employees have fantastic executive functioning (it sounds so important!) and can regulate their instincts because they know that a bigger reward awaits in the future. Who wants to boast about being a great bottom-up default mode-thinker (yawn!) who pursues instant gratification? Our social expectations and norms tend to relate more readily to people who thrive at a standard educational curriculum, have higher education qualifications, and can interpret and execute grand strategies that may well be shared quite impersonally on a big stage. Our modern world is biased towards neurotypical traits, and I think that the labels show it.
Did I say neurotypical traits? Sorry. I mean Trailblazer traits.
But indeed, let me come clean. This piece is about neurodiversity. I wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t use familiar labels, and only used unequivocally positive terms to describe typical neurodivergent and neurotypical traits in very general terms. I would love to hear from you about whether these different labels changed your openness to and perception of what you have been reading about.
The great thing about culture and value-interpretation is that it is a social construct. It is without question a powerful social construct, but it was created, unconsciously, by people and people can, consciously, change it. It will take us time and effort, but we have all the Sparkler and Trailblazer raw materials that we need to make this adaptation. Each of us, and society, will only benefit if we can succeed.
I'm Lisa, and I help leaders create inclusive cultures that embrace all neurostyles. By empowering every team member to contribute at their best, while fostering mental well-being, you will boost innovation, retention, and talent acquisition—leading to enhanced business performance.
Click here to learn more about how my services can transform your team.
