creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties

I’m not a business/leadership guru so I approach this post with humility but the idea of finding that “one right person” just feels like a waste of time in situations where a group of smart people or an active community already exist.  When I say that “chasing the expert” is not always the answer I’m not knocking the expert and I’m definitely not saying that we don’t need the experts because we do.  We need them, always will and everyone should strive to be one in an area but the idea that “the right person” is the only way “to the right answer” in my opinion is flawed.   Especially when a multitude of creative “solutions” exist right in our back yard via a community?  Overlooking this is to miss out on the largest natural deposit of information and ideas around.  I have grown to really lean on my community.

On Groups

In most cases, decisions are made by small exclusive groups that consist of the same people.  This is actually not a huge problem as long as you can maintain the following:

1.  Diversity-Less about ethnicity and age and more about experience.
2.  Independent Thinking-Once people stop thinking independently the collective wisdom of the group diminishes.

As smart and well intentioned as the group might be anytime you don’t have diversity and independent thinking you develop  “groupthink.”

Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas.

This also happens when people in the room start to “go with the flow” with someone because that someone is some one.  Many times, the proposed “solutions” go uncontested.  It’s so common and yet so dangerous.

I tell my team on a number of occasions that over time if I sense they are blindly agreeing with me, I start to worry.  I actually consider it a form of laziness.  Seriously.  The truth is, regardless of what I say or how I say it, I’m about as right on  stuff as I am lucky. I need and want people to debate the issues until the best idea surfaces.  Groupthink becomes the erosion of impact and effectiveness.

What’s worse about this is when leaders use their influence to create groupthink intentionally or unintentionally but that’s a different post. How many leaders do you know choose to put themselves in a room with as diverse group of people as they can?  Maybe lots of leaders do (in actuality that was the set up question).  How many do that while ensuring and encouraging that all are independent thinkers too?  How is independent thinking rewarded?  That’s the key.  We give out gold stars/street cred/props sometimes to those who provide a path of least resistance for our ideas even if it leads to mediocrity.

A way to prevent this is by adding a little “PUDAKI” to your meetings and groups.

PUDAKI is an acronym for: Pure Unfiltered Debate Around Key Issues.

I find that a little (and sometimes a lot of) PUDAKI keeps the idea and solution bucket nice and full but the only way it exists is if the group feels the freedom to be independent thinkers.  A group of smart diverse and independent thinkers can usually come up with the best solutions over the long haul (I’ll write a post about that research some other time).  I have found that a group, as long as it’s diverse, has more creative and unbiased ways at solving a problem too.  In this day in age, your best idea may come from the places and people you least expect it from so OPEN up.  Make sure your peeps aren’t scared to debate.  Often something at some point made the environment feel unsafe.  Talk about it.  When this is firing on all cylnders the language of ‘chasing the expert” seems way less frequent.

I end with this quote: “If a group is so unintelligent that it flounders without the right expert, it’s not clear why the group would be intelligent enough to recognize the expert when it found him.”

Do you think groups can be trusted to solve problems?  If so, how do you maintain independent thinking to prevent “groupthink?”