INVITING CREATIVE CHALLENGE

While feedback is a critical component of the leader-follower system, it is reactive. Beyond feedback there is a proactive mode of operating in which ideas are continuously sought, encouraged, developed, examined, challenged, modified, synthesized, and adopted or discarded.

A creative culture emerges when there is a commitment to broadening participation and seeking diverse perspectives, to challenging the status quo and the obvious solution. When a group relishes this spirit of creative challenge, it rolls back its limits and finds new ways of pursuing its purpose.

It is critical that leaders distinguish between challenge to their authority and challenge to their ideas. This clear distinction permits an environment of open dialogue and vibrant creativity. Confusion in this arena is stifling.

Even leaders who philosophically welcome creative challenge need to understand how they might inadvertently discourage it:

Leaders often grasp situations and opportunities with great internal speed and want to rapidly implement the ideas they formulate in response to these.

Leaders are prone to communicating their ideas with great energy and conviction, which is part of their gift.

When leaders present their own ideas for action before giving their team a chance to generate a range of options, they inhibit further dialogue.

A leader’s premature display of conviction about an idea discourages creative challenge, as a would-be challenger does not want to appear negative or disloyal.

Too often, a CEO spends a whole meeting presenting a “great new idea” more or less as a fait accompli, then asks whether there are any problems with it. The people around the table know he’s made up his mind and don’t really want to hear about problems or concerns. So they don’t speak up. There is no process that invites creative dialogue.

To make full use of the team’s intellectual resources, leaders need to formally or informally establish norms of behavior that encourage creative challenge. These might include the following:

Information about situations of major import to the group is broadly shared so it can be factored into the thinking of all team members.

Dialogue is invited about important decisions that will impact the group.

To encourage uninhibited thinking, processes are established for generating creative approaches that are distinct from the processes for evaluating those approaches.

Distinctions are made between an idea and its originator so status does not cloud value; as appropriate, methods for anonymously presenting ideas are used.

Group members, including the leader, improve their communication and meeting skills so they don’t discourage contributors through words, voice tone, or body language.

Sacred cows are gently led to pasture—all relevant options are open for discussion.

Even “wild” ideas are not discounted, but examined for what new ways of thinking they may open.

Even “sensible” ideas are tested against different scenarios to see whether they hold up under scrutiny.

Once leaders demonstrate commitment to a participatory process, the behavior of individuals in the group often changes perceptibly in ways that enhance group interaction. If leaders regress to an earlier, less participatory mode, followers can hold the leader accountable to the norms of creative dialogue that have been established. True partnerships can be founded in this climate, and exceptional teamwork can emerge.