How Can Groups Better Encourage Ideas?
Reflections on the flow of ideas in groups, and some humble tips / ideas to inspire freer and fuller expression
Hello Dear,
Welcome (back again) to #NotJust my recently launched #NotJust email newsletter cum blog titled One Doubt Please, where a serving civil servant (yes, i.e., me) seeks to share his #NotJust reflections concerning #NotJust governance - i.e., concerning various aspects of our shared past, present and future. The various articles published so far are available on the home page here. You can also subscribe to the newsletter for free, in which case new articles / posts will get delivered to your email inbox.
You know, the first thought which came to my mind as I sat down to type today’s post is the same as that of yesterday: the ticking clock which occupies a seemingly hallowed place in the main hall of the house I am living in now. And like yesterday, this is accompanied by an urge - perhaps unrealistic - to finish this post in 25 minutes flat. 😊
Why the hurry, right? Valid and very important question which we should ask all of us, concerning various aspects of our shared existence. A potentially equally valid question which we often hear and ask is: why so slow? We will come to this later.
For now, especially since we talked about clocks both yesterday and now today, let me share with you one book which I want to read; I almost ordered it yesterday, but put it off, having been disappointed to see the price. The book is Technics and Civilization, a 1934 book, by Lewis Mumford.
What is the connection between this clocks and this book? In the 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman tells us how Mumford talks in this book about a philosophy of clocks: about how a clock has the effect of dissociating time from human events and thus nourishes the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences. Postman tells us that “the clock made us into time-keepers, and then time-savers and now time-servers”. Well, let us come to this in greater depth in another post.
And wow, I am happy to have discovered something now: while the book is high-priced (for me) on Amazon, the soft copy is available on Internet Archive here! A pleasant consolation.😊
Ok, let us come to our topic of reflection for today.
How Well are We Expressing Ourselves?
Let us begin with a question. How freely and fully are you able to express yourselves? At your workplace, in life more generally? Come to think of it, this - free and full self-expression - is fundamental to life, isn’t it?
We realize that there are various social and cultural factors which hinder our smooth and fluid expression. And I believe all of us need to examine and take actions to see that we are all able and inspired to express ourselves and to encourage ourselves to do so, better and more fully. This is necessary for a fuller realization of our individual and collective potential. Here is one of many posts which I have written on the same.
Now, speaking of the social and cultural factors which hinder the free flow of ideas brings us immediately to the very interesting question of human behaviour in groups. The potential for complexity in human behaviours and interactions increases many-fold as we move from individual to group, even if the group is small. And I think this complexity, while challenging on many fronts, is also what makes life so very interesting. What say?
And as we speak of groups, we have new types of groups in our “new digital age”, don’t we? A decade ago, we must have immediately thought of Facebook groups, but now, I think we are more likely to be an active member of numerous WhatsApp groups, rather than Facebook groups. And in this context, let me share something which I hope should be reasonably amusing to you.
A Theory of Silence in Groups😊
You know, I happen to have been a very active member of some professional groups, “one of the most loquacious members”, as someone once referred to me 9 years ago. And just yesterday, I shared something in one such group, and happened to get the response I get almost always. What is that response? Silence. Absolute silence. Or #NotJust silence, in a way. 😊😊
However, as I was telling a friend and fellow officer of Indian Information Service (IIS, the service to which I happen to belong) yesterday, I regard this too as a form of response itself. Silence too communicates, right? And often, silence is a more powerful form of communication than words and images, isn’t it?
Now, here is what you might find amusing. I have a theory to explain and interpret this unique form of group response (i.e., absolute silence) - a theory which I believe holds in most, not all, cases. Thus goes this theory.
One theory which I think applies in most (not all) cases is that when there is absolute silence in response to your message in a group, it is because you said something incredibly smart or incredibly stupid or some other variation of the extremes - such as incredibly good or incredibly bad, or incredibly conceited or incredibly humble, and so on.
Indeed, I am sharing this in a light cum serious vein, it is not tested, and it might very well be absolutely incorrect, but at the same time, I suspect that it might have a grain or more of truth as well. In one sense, I am not much concerned if it is false, in another, I wonder whether this has deeper ramifications and deserves a deeper inquiry.
And you know, this theory is inspired by the following excerpt from Enemy of The State one of my favourite movies.😊
Speaking of group behaviours and our silence in groups, I think as serving and aspiring leaders, it is crucial that we all encourage our people to think without boundaries. In particular, I believe we should encourage our people and we ourselves to feel free and be courageous enough to share two types of ideas.
Out-of-The-World Ideas
This is where we let ourselves fly with childlike abandon, where we lend wings to our imagination, without being bound by what is “practical”. We do not forget reality, but at the same time, we hold high aspirations, we refuse to be bogged down by what the world tells us is difficult or impossible, or what we think the world would judge to be impossible.
In a sense, if we go deeper, we would perhaps realize that it is because we ourselves do not believe in our idea that we tend to think that it is the world which would not believe in it. I mean, it is quite possible that in order to justify our fear of pursuing the difficult goals and missions what we should go after, we rationalize and conveniently place this responsibility and burden on the shoulders of the world outside us, telling ourselves smugly that hey, they would judge me, so let me not do it or go for it.
And yes, as the character in Enemy of the State says, these seemingly impossible ideas could either be incredibly smart or incredibly stupid - or even anything in between. Let us be open to it, and embrace the joy that comes with an attitude of welcoming unknown possibilities.
Absolutely Obvious Ideas
Here, we think of the early wins, the so-called “low-hanging fruits”, the numerous little things which we can do in our work and life in order to make our lives better, even if that be for one person for one moment in one small way. Create a culture where numerous such ideas are being shared, built upon and implemented by more and more of our people, and we have a winning culture for our organization, community or society.
These are, in other words, the little things which we often say which life is after all made up of, which make life beautiful, which imbue it with meaning and make it worth living.
Ok, let me quickly share below an old post I had written six years ago, which explores this in a little more detail.
[Beginning of an article I wrote in May 2017]
Ideas permeate life. Almost all human progress begins with — and inspires — ideas. The wheel, the Eiffel Tower, the TED Talks, the General Theory of Relativity, the Internet, the Mars Mission, organic farming, the idea of Creation itself — of both man in general, and you and me in particular: these are just a few manifestations of ideas that come to mind, at the moment.
Yes, if we have to get better at what we do, why we do it, who we are and who we are becoming; if we have to help and inspire more and more people to do the same; we have no option but to lock ourselves into an eternal embrace with the infinite power of ideas.
While there are many steps in the Idea Life Cycle, the first step, it seems, is Idea Generation (we will discuss the zeroth step, in a future post). Now, there are various roadblocks to creativity; many known and hidden factors hinder the generation of ideas, especially in a group setting. There are various methods, and types of methods, people and organizations can adopt, in order to remove these blockages.
Here is one more: a simple proposal — a hack if you will — that I think could result in more and better ideas, especially in group/community/organizational contexts.
The key is to look out for two specific types of Ideas — “Everyone Ideas” and “No One Ideas”, by being obvious and being foolish respectively.
Now, that may sound both obvious and foolish. So, let me elaborate.
Be Everyone
Ask yourself: which ideas would most, if not all, people find worthy of being accepted?
We are often afraid to look stupid. At the same time, we often fail to see “the obvious”. In other words, what is “obvious” is often not obvious. Even then, when the “obvious” is pointed out, perhaps due to hindsight bias, people tend to say/believe that it was always obvious, thereby belittling the idea suggester.
Due to this interesting dynamic, we may often hesitate — to not only state, but even explore, what is obvious. The systematic failure to explore the territory of the obvious can often create a nagging gap in the comprehension and assimilation of reality, at the level of individuals, groups, organizations, even nations and the world.
Adopting this principle can often lead to the generation of ideas that are both must-do and eminently doable, but which no one has bothered to think of/explore/propose earlier. Or it may lead to ideas that are very basic, yet remains unattended due to mixing up of priorities.
Be No One
Here, we ask: which ideas would no one, if any, find worthy of being accepted?
We are all prisoners; at least partial prisoners. Of our past, our experiences, beliefs, values; of who we are and who we aspire to be. This is true at the level of not only individuals, but also groups, families, organizations, industries, nations, societies and even civilizations. The feeling of community breeds silos, almost as a natural by-product. Organizations fail to look outside their industry; often, their industry itself would be in a huge crisis, and the organization may not have woken up to it. As individuals, interactions with like-minded people may form the dominant or even exclusive part of our social diet, thus entrenching these prison-walls of the global society.
Due to the immense self-preserving power of the burden of the past, great ideas would almost always be ahead of the times in which they originate. As such, they are likely to find little, if any, acceptance among most people. [The Theory of Diffusion of Innovations, propounded by Everett Rogers, provides an explanation of the phenomenon of the spread of new ideas and innovations].
Would it not therefore be a good idea to explicitly seek out those types of ideas which are almost certain to be rejected by almost everyone, except you yourself? This is not to suggest that only you or me can be ahead of everyone else; just that at any given time, in any given piece of any giant puzzle, every individual in the group involved in the ideation process has a non-zero chance of striking some gold-mine that is as yet unknown.
The hope is that, by explicitly encouraging people to think of such ideas, we are able to facilitate and expedite the difficult process of freeing ourselves and our imagination from the shackles of our cognitive prison-guards. Hopefully, we would then have a better chance of instigating everyone to truly aim high, dream big, redefine reality, galvanize energies, inspire action and help transform the world.
It may be added that not just individuals, even groups can Be Everyone and Be No One. In other words, the same principle can be applied at the level of groups and organizations too. So for instance, an organization can be no one, by explicitly search for ideas which no other organization in its industry or related industries would find worthy of accepting.
What do you think of this post? Please do take a minute (or more), to share your invaluable feedback. Thank you very much.
[End of the article I had written in May 2017]
You know what, when I began writing, what I wanted to write about is on a slightly different topic. But that is part the fun of writing and exploration, right? And yes, we will come to that topic later.
Fine then, let us stop here for today. Hope I have been able to be of some value to you. Thank you very much for stopping by (wow, it now strikes me that we seldom stop, in today’s fast world, do we?!). Do please share your thoughts in the comments section or at my email newdheep@gmail.com, and please consider sharing this with your social circle too if you find it valuable.
I would also be grateful to hear from you on any specific topics or themes you would like me to write on. Thank you once again, take care, Best! - Dheep.