4 ms·

To your point about psychological safety, that is actually reason to have an initial phase of idea generation occur individually before meeting in a group. Even

To your point about psychological safety, that is actually reason to have an initial phase of idea generation occur individually before meeting in a group. Even a fully "positive-only" group likely inhibits divergent thinking to some degree. Regarding groups, research challenges your claim that avoiding criticism during brainstorming "expands the boundaries of creativity", and that criticism is only useful for "winnowing down [already proposed] options." There are multiple studies showing that criticism during discussion _produces_ (not just selects) better ideas. This is a good academic review of literature covering these topics https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10.1287/orsc.2020.1420 https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10.1287/orsc.2020.14...

clairity 5y ago
no one's arguing that we can't (or shouldn't) have any criticism during brainstorming, only that negativity (which can also be read as aggression) reduces psychological safety, which in turn reduces creativity. people do pull back (consciously and subconsciously) when the sting of (negative) criticism looms. idea-focused criticism (rather than people-focused) can hone decision-making, but we still need that psychological safety to get the best outcomes. these things can both be true at the same time, and we can both succeed and fail at fostering either or both and not get the best outcome. just as we might criticize an overly safety-oriented decision-making process, criticism-oriented decision-making processes tend to degenerate into contests of aggression, which tend to produce inferior outcomes. dogmatism in any direction doesn't help.
- pepoluan 5y ago
  To put it in a nutshell: Criticism should be put forth in a "let's get this to work, together. Failure should not be feared; it's another data point" mindset.

4 ms·

To your point about psychological safety, that is actually reason to have an initial phase of idea generation occur individually before meeting in a group. Even

by dsizzle 5y ago

clairity 5y ago
no one's arguing that we can't (or shouldn't) have any criticism during brainstorming, only that negativity (which can also be read as aggression) reduces psychological safety, which in turn reduces creativity. people do pull back (consciously and subconsciously) when the sting of (negative) criticism looms. idea-focused criticism (rather than people-focused) can hone decision-making, but we still need that psychological safety to get the best outcomes. these things can both be true at the same time, and we can both succeed and fail at fostering either or both and not get the best outcome. just as we might criticize an overly safety-oriented decision-making process, criticism-oriented decision-making processes tend to degenerate into contests of aggression, which tend to produce inferior outcomes. dogmatism in any direction doesn't help.
- pepoluan 5y ago
  To put it in a nutshell: Criticism should be put forth in a "let's get this to work, together. Failure should not be feared; it's another data point" mindset.