Long work interruptions are usually seen as detrimental, causing losses in productivity as operations grind to a halt. But when a fire at a supplier’s factory forced a temporary shutdown at the plant of a large European manufacturer of consumer goods, Hamburg University of Technology’s Tim Schweisfurth and a colleague—Anne Greul, then a doctoral student at the Technical University of Munich—found a surprising upside: The idleness led to an outpouring of ideas for improvements. The conclusion: Unexpected interruptions can boost creativity.
A version of this article appeared in the November–December 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.
