You and Your Research (1986)(cs.virginia.edu)

  Another trait, it took me a while to notice. 
  I noticed the following facts about people 
  who work with the door open or the door closed. 
  I notice that if you have the door to your 
  office closed, you get more work done today 
  and tomorrow, and you are more productive than 
  most. But 10 years later somehow you don't 
  know quite know what problems are worth working 
  on; all the hard work you do is sort of 
  tangential in importance. He who works with 
  the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, 
  but he also occasionally gets clues as to what 
  the world is and what might be important. Now 
  I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence 
  because you might say, ``The closed door is 
  symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But 
  I can say there is a pretty good correlation 
  between those who work with the doors open and 
  those who ultimately do important things, 
  although people who work with doors closed 
  often work harder. Somehow they seem to work 
  on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but 
  enough that they miss fame.

  "And I can cite another person in the same way. I trust he isn't in the audience, i.e. a fellow named Clogston. I met him when I was working on a problem with John Pierce's group and I didn't think he had much. I asked my friends who had been with him at school, ``Was he like that in graduate school?'' ``Yes,'' they replied. Well I would have fired the fellow..."

  "One success brought him confidence and courage... One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage."