The word "No" (or some form of it) is one of the most common words thinkers hear when they're coming up with new ideas. Creativity sessions are full of phrases like "that idea isn't what we're looking for" and "it will never work" or "we're not interested in going that direction".
But is rejecting an idea actually harmful to creative thinking? Consider the following story about what happened during my first experience with on-your-feet thinking:
When I was 8 years old, I had the starring role in a play for a children's drama club. I was a chicken and it was one of those free-flow improv classes where, if someone says the chicken was missing a foot, I'd have to hop on one leg for the rest of the play.
The day of the performance, I excitedly put on my chicken costume and rushed on stage, ready to show the world how good an actor I was. Then I completely bombed every scene, forgot how to improvise lines and walked happily around on my "missing" foot after another character removed it.
It was a complete and total disaster.
The reason was simple: since I really wanted everything to go perfectly, I immediately rejected every suggestion that I though was "stupid" and pushed for the outcome I wanted.
As Cory from Stories By REL reminded me about both improv and creative thinking in the comments of How to take an idea to the next level, "NO" kills creativity...it kills ideas....it kills relationships...it kills really great scenes!"
He's very right! Creative thinking is very similar to improvisation in that respect. There is no way to predict what ideas will come up, or where the thinking session will ultimately lead. It's a scary, on-the-spot process with a lot of opportunity for participants to look just as silly as an improv performer dressed in a chicken costume with no idea what to say.
Saying no in a creativity session:
Destroys momentum. Improvisation is about building off every suggestion and seeing where the performance goes. Most creative ideas don't come out as fully-formed solutions, but are built up from beginnings of ideas and concepts. When someone says no to an idea, the group starts back at zero.
Destroys the group's synergy. When criticism is allowed, it becomes open season on ideas and a contest to see who has the best one. Instead of building off the ideas of others, participants shoot them down. Some participants never think of their own ideas because they're spending too much time listing what's wrong with the ideas that are already out there!
Destroys risk-taking. If someone has an edgy idea and is scared they'll be shot down, they simply won't bring it up. The group loses the value of this idea, and any ideas that may build off it, as well as everyone's desire to put their ideas out there.
Saying "no" is just as disastrous to idea sessions as it is to brainstorming and it can be far more costly. A ruined improv performance is just one night, but an unproductive idea session not only wastes the time people spent, it costs them the ideas they could have had and discourages participants for the next round of thinking.
In fact, if groups that use "no" a lot during their creativity sessions, they shouldn't
count on using the full creative brain power of their thinkers.
When many ideas are quickly snuffed out, there will be many more ideas that no one will ever share. The word "no" is a huge deterrent to getting people excited about solving a challenge. They'll know that when they're working hard to come up with as many ideas as possible, someone is looking for a chance to shut them down.
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