The Easiest Way to Crush Creativity

Paul Sloane — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 22:16:14 +0000

The easiest way to crush creativity is to find fault with new ideas which colleagues and subordinates bring forward. The more clever and more experienced you are, the easier it is to shoot holes in any proposal You can show your superior intelligence and highly honed management analysis skills by pointing out all the flaws in their proposals. All the experts pointed out to Marconi that radio waves travel in straight lines and the Earth is a sphere so it was silly to think of transmitting a radio signal across the Atlantic. Yet Marconi defied the experts by transmitting across the Atlantic. The radio signals were reflected by the ionosphere. As those experts showed, intelligence and experience can give us all the ammunition we need to criticise innovative ideas.

All it takes is for a few crazy ideas to be shot down and people stop volunteering them. So the next time someone comes to you with a wacky, half-formed idea which you can immediately see is riddled with faults, bite your tongue and say the following:

‘That sounds interesting; how can we make it work?’

The let them talk. As they expand on their idea you will almost certainly see ways in which it could be adapted to work. Explore it constructively together and you stand a better chance of coming up with a winner. What is more the person who was courageous enough to suggest the idea feels motivated to improve on their idea and encouraged to come up with more in the future.

An atmosphere where ideas are criticized will crush creativity and deter people from coming forward. An atmosphere which welcomes ideas is a necessary prerequisite for an innovative organization. It is an essential foundation on which to build an entrepreneurial enterprise.

Paul Sloane

Why does Roger Federer serve Double Faults?

Paul Sloane — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:05:34 +0000

Why does Roger Federer serve double faults? Every double fault is a failure – it gives a precious point to his opponent. He could easily cut out all double faults by slowing down his second serve to ensure that it lands safely in the service box. Yet in most long matches Federer, like most other top players, will serve at least 3 double faults.

Clearly the tennis champion has made a careful calculation of the trade-off between being bold or cautious on his second serve. He knows that if he makes his serves safe he will make the returns easier for his opponent. He wants to win a high percentage of points on his serve and use it as an attacking tactic. He is quite prepared to lose some points as double faults if it means that most of the time his serves are difficult to return. There is an optimum number of double faults that a tennis player should serve in a match and the number is not zero.

The same principle applies to us in our enterprises. Caution can be an enemy of success. If every new thing that we try works it almost certainly means that we are not being bold enough. We should take some courageous initiatives. We should sometimes fail. We should serve some double faults.

What innovations have you tried in the last three months? Make a list. How many succeeded and how many failed? For those that failed, why did they fail? What lessons can you learn? Obviously you aim for success and you want to win. But there will be failures on the road to success. If you cut out the possibility of failure then you limit your chances of success.

Paul Sloane

BQF Innovation Blog » fault

The Easiest Way to Crush Creativity

Why does Roger Federer serve Double Faults?