To solve problems, groups need good ideas. Since complex problems usually require many good ideas, we generate them any way we can — brainstorming, conversations over lunch, or even dreaming. The ideas we generate include the good, the bad, and the ugly, and it isn't always obvious which is which. We have to comb through them all, evaluating, assessing, doing thought experiments, and making judgments. When we think we've found something worthwhile, we might do some actual experiments to help with the judging.
Generate, judge, experiment. Generate, judge, experiment. It isn't a simple cycle, of course, because sometimes we generate new ideas in the course of judging, or while running experiments. Nevertheless, it's useful to consider three roles for group members: generators, judges, and experimenters. Some people hop easily from role to role, and some adopt two roles — or all three — simultaneously.
Although ideas have a life cycle, we don't always respect that life cycle, and that's where trouble can begin. Over the next three issues, I offer some insights that help us to accommodate our generating, judging, and experimenting efforts to the life cycle of ideas. Let's begin with generating.
- Newborn ideas are fragile
- Newborn ideas — ideas just hatched and new to the group — are easily crushed. They usually have weaknesses that haven't yet been addressed. They're incomplete and vulnerable.
- Their vulnerability arises from at least three sources. First, if the problem space is complex, the generator of the idea might have grasped only a part of the problem. Second, generators tend to focus on singular aspects of the problem, even if they have grasped the entire problem. Third, to aid generation, generators often intentionally produce wacky or mostly-wacky ideas, because they can trigger creative thinking.
- To prevent premature rejection of newborn ideas, suspend judging until generation has completed an iteration. This suspension is an important part of formal brainstorming.
- Addressing weaknesses requires resources
- Newborn ideas are Newborn ideas are incomplete,
in part, because of the
narrowness of
their constituenciesincomplete, in part, because of the narrowness of their constituencies. Because it's new, a newborn idea hasn't yet acquired advocates beyond the small circle of its generators. This is rarely enough to protect a newborn idea from rejection, as its list of weaknesses accumulates. - When we apply our judging and evaluation processes to newborn ideas, they sometimes die because their constituencies are so narrow that they suffer from insufficient exposure to cognitive diversity. For example, their generators might not have considered a weakness identified by a judge, or even if they have, they might not have developed a resolution.
- To prevent premature rejection of newborn ideas during judging, consider designating teams of advocates to address the weaknesses judges identify. The advocates might need more members than the judging team, because addressing weaknesses can be more difficult than identifying them.
Next time, we'll examine the judging process. Meanwhile, I hope you can suspend judgment on these insights about newborn ideas. Next in this series Top Next Issue
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Problem Solving and Creativity:
- Learning
- What have you learned today? What has enriched you, changed your understanding of the world, or given
you a new view of history or the future? Learning something new every day is a worthy goal.
- Solutions as Found Art
- Examining the most innovative solutions we've developed for difficult problems, we often find that they
aren't purely new. Many contain pieces of familiar ideas and techniques combined together in new ways.
Accepting this as a starting point can change our approach to problem solving.
- Resolving Ambiguity
- Ambiguity is anathema to success in collaborations. It causes errors and rework, extending time-to-market.
When we interpret information, we often choose the first interpretation we find, never recognizing that
others are possible. That leads to failure.
- Depth First or Breadth First?
- When investigating candidate solutions to a problem, we tend to focus first on what we believe is the
"best bet." But a more systematic approach can sometimes yield dramatic advantages by reducing
the cost of the investigation and the time it requires.
- Asymmetric Group Debate
- Group debates at work can be difficult when the domains of expertise of participants don't overlap by
much. Communicating is possible, though, if we believe in our shared goals and if we tackle the hard
parts without an audience.
See also Problem Solving and Creativity and Conflict Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
- A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
- And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
- A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Follow Rick
Recommend this issue to a friend
Send an email message to a friend
rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed