Want to kill your teams creative spirit and guarantee that they keep delivering to you what they always have?
If you are like most of my clients, the answer would be a VERY definitive, NO!
You WANT just the opposite.
Every business owner or CEO that I coach, tells me early and often that they NEED their team to be MORE creative and MORE innovative. They just don’t know how to get it.
Here’s a very common mistake. They play, encourage, or allow the devil’s advocate.
Here’s the likely scenerio.
The team is “green lighting” a bunch of new ideas and starting to make some progress. The group is looking at old ideas with new perspectives. They are welcoming and even encouraging new ideas on some of their “sacred cows.” They are beginning to see their way forward with new found CLARITY. The scent of momentum is in the room. Then someone is allowed to make the idea killing comment. Here’s what they say…
“Let me play the DEVIL’s ADVOCATE for a minute.”
Talk about buzz kill.
The next x minutes are spent draining the hope and life and creative spirit out of the room. In actuality, it does not take long. Once the brain is switched from “what’s possible” to “why it’s not” it rushes to judge in NO time.
And that is what the group gets.
They get to NO.
Creativity does NOT live there.
Where is your team taking up residence?
Where do you want them to live?
What questions are you asking?
Why?
Do you play the Devil’s advocate with ease?
What role are you playing when the team develops their best ideas?
Why?
How can you improve?
BUILT TO LEAD 