Thinking Wrong – the key to great ideas
I came across this article, “Learning to ‘Think Wrong’ Could Be the Key to the Right Answers” and it really resonated with me.
For me this was the main idea that I took away, “People need to keep their imagination alive and not feel like they need to be right all the time. That’s difficult because by the time we’re adults, we’re afraid of failure.”
I think in education and ideation – imagination and abandoning fear are the key.
I love the brainstorming process. I get a chance to lead ideation sessions several times per year with a variety of different groups of people. I have found that in the brainstorming process that removing evaulation entirely is essential—there are no bad ideas and we do not critique other ideas. We try to create as much trust and safety possible, and creating a loose and fun environment. We use separate meetings to evaluate, plan, discuss logistics, narrow and implement. This protecting of the brainstorming time has led to less fear and greater imagination.
