Whenever a good group suddenly lapses into “going round in circles” or adversarial discussions (however unintended or disguised ), a simple process intervention called “debriefing” always works. In debriefing, a group pauses to self-correct the discussion by getting out of content and examining its process to intercept further slippage.
In gaining acceptance, matching what you are offering to what the listener is looking for is a fool-proof way to success.
Why do so many new ideas fail? Or don’t even get tried? One big reason is that people don’t take the time to evaluate properly. They love ideating, but they take idea evaluation for granted and don’t take the time to do it properly. They think they are finished and either just vote, or worse, jump into action right away. Usually these ideas fail to deliver good results or don’t even get tried, left to accumulate on the “back burner” (also known as “idea purgatory”).
In a field experiment, 112 managers in a large international consumer goods corporation learned to apply a process of creative problem solving to their on the job problems. It was discovered that deliberately avoiding premature evaluation was the key to igniting big improvements in both idea creation and evaluation. This research now supports years of real world experience of the practical value of this simple skill in innovative thinking and decision making.
Interdisciplinary teams often get stuck arguing endlessly for and against solutions that would sub-optimize individual members’ own department’s goals. By stepping back to agree on the few key facts which are blocking them, they can free themselves up to define create a unifying and energizing “How might we?” problem to solve.
Most of us live in the world of “how”. We dwell on solutions to problems, we argue about which of two or three ways to proceed or positions to support. We are bombarded with “sound bites” which polarize us into selecting one of two opposing opinions and deepening our belief in one or the other. We get frustrated and see ourselves worlds apart. However, we may be a lot closer than we think. We just haven’t paid enough attention to why we are trying to do it instead of how we are going to do it.
