Judge Me On My Good Ideas
Not my bad ones
I caught sight of an interview involving Matt Damon and Ben Affleck recently, where they were discussing brainstorming and collaboration.
Damon said that one comment from Affleck when they were in the process of writing Good Will Hunting was:
“Judge me for how good my good ideas are, not on how bad my bad ideas are.”
This I found a great piece of guidance.
The whole point of brainstorming is to throw out ideas and to iterate on them until you find something that you can work with, however, if people work under the fear of their bad ideas being judged then they won’t let the ideas flow at all.
And if no ideas are flowing then you are doomed to failure, so it is imperative that you create a safe space for the ideas to flow.
Don’t judge the bad ideas.
Judge only how good the good ones are.
Getting Started in Product operates a bookstore that covers everything product and business-related, including recruitment advice such as Creativity Now: Get inspired, create ideas and make them happen! and Hegarty on Creativity: There are No Rules