Groupthink arises from the desire of a group to maintain harmony and consensus. Groupthink can reduce the diversity of ideas and opinions — people can seek to avoid conflict, or avoid expressing unpopular views, and end up thinking down the same path. When psychological safety is low and people feel they may experience disapproval, particularly from people with higher ranking or status within the group, groupthink can get worse.

It can be uncomfortable to express opinions different from a group. Perhaps you remember that feeling when a teacher asked a question in class and if everyone raised their hand to one answer it wasn't always easy to be the only hand up for a different one.

Fortunately, there are some solid ways to minimise the tendency to groupthink. These include:

Generating ideas separately before coming together — can be effective remotely too

Increasing psychological safety so everyone feels comfortable expressing contrarian views

Establishing the norm of a shared work product rather than individual credit/blame

Groupthink

The magic of a first draft is that the first draft is always perfect. It doesn't matter if it's rubbish, if it's messy, if it doesn't flow, if it lacks personality, or if it won't work. The job of a first draft is to be a draft and get the process started. So however it turns out, the first draft has done its job perfectly.

In the illustrated art collection by Dr Seuss you can see some of the first drafts and iterations of text and images that go to refine the seemingly effortless rhythm, rhyme and combination of text and images from his wacky illustrations.

Donald Schön, in his classic The Reflective Practitioner, goes further by sharing his analysis of design as a reflective conversation – observing each mark sketched on paper informs the next you make. You don't know how it will turn out until you put pen to paper. Seeing what comes out allows you to adapt and modify as you go in a back-and-forth of discovery and evaluation.

Don't worry about your first draft — it'll be perfect.

I read this for the first time in an article by Casey Fowler that's no longer live. Most likely, it originates from the novelist Jane Smiley:

"Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It's perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist."

The first draft is always perfect

On 17 December 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright brothers took the first short flights in their Wright Flyer. It's the original Kitty Hawk moment: when the impossible becomes possible. The first radio transmission, the first autonomous vehicle journey, the first sub-2 hour marathon could all be Kitty Hawk moments.

A Kitty Hawk moment as a metaphor doesn't have to be big or as clear cut — it could be your first 5k, the first video call with an elderly relative, or the first sale for your business  — it just needs to help to break a barrier and show what's now possible.

In a lovely article on The Kitty Hawk moment, after Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne flight, Bob Clarebrough highlights that not everyone will see the significance of a Kitty Hawk moment. And it was nearly 24 years before the first plane crossing of the Atlantic. Like Bill Buxton's idea of the long nose of innovation there may be a lot of work left before the new development hits the big time.

Kitty Hawk moment

When it comes to innovating, counterintuitively, I think the surest way to produce something new and noteworthy is to start by replicating the work you admire.

If you're making music, first play the music from your favourite artists, then make music like theirs. Only when you've mastered that do you need to go your own way.

If you admire Hemingway, practice writing like him, and your own voice will likely develop by itself.

Before helping develop cubism Picasso was first an accomplished artist.

It's easy to look at the best and think you have to be different. But standing up first makes it easier to stand on the shoulders of giants.

What's more, copying is much lower pressure.

I learned this idea while working at Jump Associates

Replicate then innovate

One of my favourite books is a rather dog-eared 1970 edition of The Practice of Creativity by George Prince. The book gives wonderful examples and tools for having successful creative discussions in meetings. So much, George lays out, hinges on genuine listening to understand others points of view, and creating a space which protects the egos of people in the meeting, creating an atmosphere of psychological safety. One really simple tool and reframe he offers is the spectrum policy.

The spectrum policy acknowledges that few ideas will come out fully-formed and solve a problem perfectly in one go. Often our first reaction on hearing something is to evaluate it. When we hear an idea we can't help but see the negative aspects of an idea — the things that obviously won't work — and because of these negative aspects we may dismiss the whole idea. The idea is good, or it is bad. As well as the group losing out on what may have been the genesis of a solution, the originator can often feel snubbed and retire from full participation in the rest of the meeting.

With the spectrum policy we recognise that, "because you are never dealing with fools", all ideas put forward, even if we see obvious flaws, will have some good points as well as the bad. Before pointing out the flaws we make a point of finding the good in an idea and acknowledging it. This keeps elements of the idea available to build on for others and the egos of all participants intact and fully engaged in solving the problem.

The spectrum policy

Solvitur ambulando: This phrase from the Greek philosopher Diogenes translates more or less to ‘it is solved by walking’. And, indeed, there is something about walking that helps both clear the mind and think clearly.

Try a walk to get a different perspective on a problem when you’ve been banging your head against one sat at your desk. Or try a walking meeting with the bonus that you get a bit of exercise in too.

Solvitur ambulando

The classic thinking framework from Edward De Bono. Though I’m yet to be in a meeting where everyone’s familiar enough with it that it wouldn’t sound a bit nuts to propose it. Ah well.

Six thinking hats

De Bono talks a lot about provocation as a means, for example, of deliberating provoking something impossible just to provide a new perspective. For example, when trying to design a car that’s better for passengers you might provoke with something like, what would a car look like that didn’t go anywhere. Of course, you probably need the car to go somewhere, but it might lead to an idea that the doors needn’t be at the side, that the roof might change height, or that you could plumb it in. It may lead nowhere. Then again, it may lead to something new and interesting in the next step.

In case you missed the previous posts, Fundamentals of Lateral Thinking:

You don’t have to be right at every step

Lateral thinking: 4. Lateral thinking changes perspective just to be provocative

I love the principle behind this — that you can get to something that works without having things that are possible and would work along the way.

A stickier way of saying a similar thing is:

There is nothing more dangerous than to leap a chasm in two jumps

Lateral thinking: 3. You don’t have to be right at every step

During lateral thinking labels don’t have to clearly be one thing or another, they can be flexible. The phablet is a reasonable recent example of how existing terms and definitions can constrain on your thinking.

Lateral thinking: 2. Labels are not collectors but signposts. They are not fixed

There’s a lot of mention of lateral thinking without a whole lot of knowledge about the what and the why of it. Very often it seems that it’s just brainstorming. Here’s a short set of some of the fundamentals of lateral thinking. In this one the point really is that lateral thinking doesn’t solve things by itself, but you need both lateral and vertical thinking at different times. And they are very hard to do together because they are quite different mindsets.

As I understand it, Lateral thinking is from Edward de Bono.

Lateral thinking: 1. Lateral thinking is about increasing the breadth of options

Lessons from Lewis

Having played the piano most of my life I only started composing when I started spontaneously dropping by the music practice rooms at UC Berkeley in the middle of the day. Without any music I was practically forced to start making things up. Every now and then it’s new and nice. You can listen to a few short piano pieces on youtube.

I strongly believe in this as advice, but it does presuppose years of copying and playing others’ music as well as the basics of music theory. Replicate, then innovate

More sketches about starting and getting started

Want to compose? Just sit down without any music

Not so easy to get your head around as we’re used to thinking that most things are they way they are because someone chose it for a reason. But it turns out that increasingly we see products that have found benefits in otherwise stable products by simply taking a flat surface and either adding shape or texture. (two of TRIZ’s trends of technology evolution)

A flat surface has unused potential

Something I try to keep in mind whenever I set to thinking and run out of space. As much as possible, find tools that don’t limit your thinking.

Don’t let your thinking be limited by your tools

Seth Godin did a recent post about the 9-dot problem that explains more about it, albeit not in as interesting a way.

Solve the 9-dot problem

I learned this from On Writing Well by William Zinsser. It has two pages worth the price of the book by themselves. They show the same pages that made it into the book with editing marks all over them. At a glance it made me understand the work and craft that goes into writing and that I can do it to.

It also helps me realise that the way to good is by starting with something that isn't good.

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Category: creativity