3 Ways Leaders Accidentally Undermine Their Teams’ Creativity

• David Burkus

JULY 07, 2015

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about where creativity comes from and how to nurture and grow it in a team. As a result, even well-meaning leaders can end up killing the creativity of a team when they need it most.

If your team is in the midst of solving a problem or generating a new product or project idea, you might be killing their creativity without even trying. Here are three of the most common things managers do that have deleterious effects:

1. Spending too much time on brainstorming. There’s an ever-growing body of literature on the benefits and drawbacks of brainstorming, and experts on both sides arguing that it does or doesn’t work. Most of these arguments miss the true point: brainstorming as commonly practiced represents just one step in the large creative process, a step often referred to as divergent thinking. Researchers have developed a variety of different models of creativity, from the Osborn-Parnes creative problem-solving method to design thinking. What all of these methods share are some common stages, of which brainstorming is only one. Before divergent thinking can have any benefit, your team needs to have thoroughly researched the problem and be sure that their brainstorming answers the right question. Afterward, divergent thinking should be followed up with convergent thinking, where ideas are combined and sorted out to find the few answers that might be the best fit so that they can be prototyped, tested, and refined. But if your entire creative method is to get your team into a room and fill up a whiteboard, you are missing out.

2. Fostering too much cohesion. When you’re leading a team, team building is a high priority. The long-standing Tuckman model of group development emphasizes that new teams go through three phases – forming, storming, and norming. It’s easy to look at models like that and think that cohesion and friendliness should be the ultimate goal. But surprisingly, when it comes to creativity, the best teams fight a little (or even a lot). Structured, task-oriented conflict can be a signal that new ideas are being submitted to the group and tested. If you team always agrees, that might suggest that people are self-censoring their ideas, or worse, not generating any new ideas at all. Research suggests that teams that forgo traditional brainstorming rules and debate over ideas as they’re presented end up with more and better ideas. As a leader, it may seem like your job is to break up and fights, but don’t be afraid to act as a referee instead — allowing the fight over ideas to unfold, but making sure it stays fair and doesn’t get personal.

3. Judging ideas before they’ve been tested. In most organizations, once an individual or team has settled on their new idea for a product or project, they prepare to pitch it to whomever they need approval from. Whether the idea only needs you approval as the team leader, or whether it needs to be pitched through the entire hierarchy to win a green light, how new ideas are treated can dramatically and negatively affect creativity. To begin, research shows that we aren’t really that great at judging new ideas. We tend to favor ideas that reinforce the status quo and managers often tend toreject the ideas customers say they want. Compounding the issue is that, once an individual or team presents the idea and is met with rejection, the likelihood of them continuing to “think outside the box” is diminished. The result is the safe, stale ideas our biases favor—the very ones we don’t need. Instead of judging ideas first and then testing them in the marketplace, the best leaders find ways to test ideas first and defer judgment until they have early results. Whether it’s by giving everyone permission to prototype like Adobe’s Kickbox or by selling the product before it actually exists, focus on getting real results to demonstrate proof-of-concept before new ideas need to be pitched.

These ideas may seem counter-intuitive at first. Indeed, these accidental creativity killers actually seem positive on the surface. But there’s a growing body of research and case studies suggesting that underneath the surface, they’re causing more harm than good. So try the inverse and see what affect it has on your team’s creativity.

David Burkus is the author of The Myths of Creativity: The Truth About How Innovative Companies and People Generate Great Ideas. He is also founder of LDRLBand assistant professor of management at Oral Roberts University

A Simple Guide to Generating Ideas

Coming up with ideas to improve the Customer Experience is not as difficult as you might think. In fact, I recently saw a Customer Experience team generate over 100 ideas in less than an hour!

We used a workshop approach. They had just completed the first wave of their CX program and were faced with the task of ensuring the voice of the customer is embedded in decisions, actions, and processes. After reviewing the main highlights from the customer feedback, the team agreed on a manageable set of areas where they wanted the customer experience to be better. That’s when the real work started – we needed ideas on what to do…

• “Ideation” or the process of idea generation is often used to come up with ideas for possible actions to address customer issues. (A number of techniques may be used – just do a quick internet search and you’ll find a number of approaches to generate ideas).

• Our team used a brainstorming approach. The team split into small breakout groups – each given the task to generate ideas for each of the four areas. All of the ideas were documented, regardless of whether or not they were “good” ideas.

• Each idea was reviewed and evaluated based on the ease of implementation and the potential impact to the organization.

That helped narrow the list of over 100 ideas to a more manageable number. (That’s when the “bad” ideas got tossed aside). Another round of prioritization helped target the list further to a short list of action items. My net takeaway – the challenge isn’t in coming up with the ideas, it’s in the implementation….

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President, Consulting Services

Business Analysis Brainstorming Sessions: How Does Your Mind Work?

They call it business analysis for a reason. As a BA, you’re expected to think deeply about a project, and then articulate transformative and lasting solutions. But what about self-analysis?

They don’t teach that in business analyst school.

When it comes to brainstorming sessions especially, it’s best to know which way your mind works best. According to the authors at Mind Tools, knowing which “thinking hat” you wear will help your career.

This is especially important for business analysts. To break it down, there are 6 “thinking hats” that dictate your mental MO. Keep in mind that every now and again it’s important to break protocol on how you think.

When you know the way you think, you’ll be better prepared for everything you’ll face in any given project.

Are You a White Hat Thinker?

If you wear the White Hat, you focus primarily on the information you have in front of you. As a BA, you’ll definitely be put in a situation where all you have are documents, and few honest reports from stakeholders. The danger here is that you may rely on past data that’s no longer relevant.

Are You a Red Hat Thinker?

Red Hat Thinkers rely on their emotional compass. Usually they consider the emotions of others when considering a solution. As a BA, there will be emotional elements at stake, so it’s good to think this way, but since there are “feelings” at play, there may be more than one person who doesn’t fully understand the reasoning behind your decisions.

Are You a Black Hat Thinker?

Black Hat Thinkers use “negative” thought processes—i.e. they look at all the possible bad outcomes that could stem from a project. It’s a matter of caution and pointing out structural weaknesses within a company. That in and of itself is not a bad idea, but do consider the certain positives along with the possible negatives.

Are You a Yellow Hat Thinker?

Yellow Hat Thinking is the exact opposite of Black Hat Thinking—this mode of thinking keeps you rooted only in optimism about the solutions you provide. But you can be “too light” when you fail to spot leaks in the integrity of your proposals and overall solutions.

Are You a Green Hat Thinker?

The Green Hat thinking mode reflects creativity—particularly how ingenuity is applied to the solutions you develop. The problem with Green Hat Thinking is that there is a lack of criticism. In your creative-drive the voice of reason hushes itself, so look out for that.

Are You a Blue Hat Thinker?

Blue Hats are usually worn by those who conduct meetings, as that thinking mode pertains mostly to control of processes. Actually, this is the best hat to wear, because when you need a back-up plan, you switch to Black Hat thinking. When you need a new angle in your proposals, you switch to Green Hat thinking. And so on.