Nothing kills a continuous improvement conversation like stating all the reasons why something won’t work.
This has to happen though. You need to have this as part of a balanced view.
However…
…if you don’t offer any alternatives, any other courses of action, then this ‘no’ message just stunts the progress.
Six Thinking Hats
Edward de Bono wrote a brilliant book many decades ago called ‘Six Thinking Hats’. His goal appeared to be to separate types of thinking to improve effectiveness and efficiency of team working. One of those separations was linked to idea generation.
In his book he split the idea generation into three main parts; the ideas, the positive praise and the negative criticism.
(There’s more to it than this, but I don’t want to spoil the book for you!)
The suspension of the negative portion can make all the difference when it comes to idea generation, which is why this approach is so common in all brainstorming exercises.
Real life conversations
The rule of suspending judgement works really well in a brainstorming environment.
Unfortunately many of our idea generation discussions are outside of formal team idea generation exercises. They are conversations in corridors. They are phone calls. They are emails.
A casual remark to a superior member of staff that results in a “no, we can’t do that” doesn’t help to spur this conversation on.
So what can we do?
A simple rule
I remember working with an owner of a warehousing operation. They were providing a fulfilment service for other distribution companies and they needed to be slick.
There were actually two owners; brothers. One was all about ideas and possibilities. The other was not. They knew all the reasons why something couldn’t work.
Knowing why something can’t work is not the same as knowing would could work. One approach closes down possibilities whilst the other opens up them up.
A simple rule to help with this type of situation is this:
If you have a negative criticism, you must have another option to present before you speak.
Focus on the outcome
If the outcome for our improvement projects is progress, then we need to make sure our intermediate discussions push in the same direction.
Cutting the legs off a conversation doesn’t usually help your team to make progress. It just cuts the legs off.
If you want this as an outcome, that’s fine. If you don’t want that, if you want progress and your whole team to get involved with continuous improvement, then you need a different approach.
Everyone is different and has different ways of working. That’s why simple rules, like the one above, help us to function as a team. It brings common understanding to they way we work.
If you find that your conversations in your team are met with ‘that can’t be done!’ comment, try this simple idea and see what results it brings.