Negative Thought Blocks Creativity

Negative thought blocks creativity. That's it. Sometimes though when you are in an environment where negative energy is allowed to build it becomes challenging to accept ideas that might not be fully thought through. All to often the reaction is "That's not thought through - that's rubbish!". Sometimes this is a challenge to overcome, especially if the environment is in a glut, and not seemingly able to change.

The challenge then is how to overcome this, and how to do something yourself to promote change such that negative energy is not allowed to fester and destroy the creative process. There are many ways to address this, however one simple way is to start with ones self and not simply disengage with someone else's idea as it wasn't your own. Sure some idea's may not be thought through to completion, however this is exactly what the creative, product generation, process is about - working through a series of ideas to come up with a coherent set of engaging product features that your Customers will love.

In an environment where self is valued over team, this can be a real challenge. Nothing can seriously be completed if a creative process involves 10 people in a meeting room shouting over the top of each other, and not actually listening to what each person is saying. An idea needs to be logically explored to it's completion. There are many ways to do this, including hopefully an analysis of data to support a product feature. I think this however is the subject of another story. For now though rest assured that not listening to an idea and not exploring it, is a sure fire way to kill creativity, kill morale, kill team productivity and even worse - kill joy.

So here's a really simple tip. When you are in a creative meeting with others, instead of talking, first listen. Listen to what other people are saying before running with your ideas. If someone then gets in ahead of you with an idea that you think is brilliant, and that you were going to suggest, simply support them with their idea and build consensus that way. If there is an idea that you think is daft, ask the person who suggested it to qualify the use case for the idea and see how it might actually work within a product. Let the person run with the idea and provide support, if needed, and let their creativity flow into consensus. Who knows, that daft person might be the one who is actually thinking outside the business realm that you find yourself stuck in, and might actually be opening an entirely new stream of revenue for you.

Listening, promoting others to run with their ideas, and encouraging them to think freely by offering support to work through a thought into a deliverable concept, is going to pay off quickly.  This will generate a self motivated team that enjoy working together. This is a team that will want to deliver yours and their ideas, and turn them into a reality. What's more as they are a motivated team it is most likely they will exceed the Customer expectations as they will always want to deliver more than is promised.

Alternatively, as you are always right you could simply dismiss all ideas that aren't your own. You could do this, but when your delivery vehicle, i.e. your team, get that idea and are allowed to run with it to release, that run will most likely turn into a slow walk.

Cheers

m