While reading a paper by Greenberg and Buxton I realize that it so easy in every situation to fall into the trap of satisficing. We tend to choose our directions (ideas) fast and then work hard on making that fit. Instead of, what we all know is more correct, to produce a whole myriad of different directions (ideas) and then choosing the one that seems to have the highest peak (global maxima).
Whether it is a business meeting, planning what to do with your evening or designing artifacts, we need to, in the words of Bill Buxton, get the right design first and worry about getting the design right after.
There are so many different takes on this same problem. Probably the most famous is “fail early to succeed sooner” – IDEO. Another one is that the whole reason why brainstorming is a method considered to add value is that it helps us getting all ideas and notions on the table.
It seems that even when we know all of these things we need to consciously create an environment that encourages many ideas at an early stage. Because from experience it seems to me that we don’t do this naturally. Or perhaps it is not a question of what is natural but that the social context (culture) of our meetings, projects and work simply has to much fear that it inhibits our ability to be ok with being wrong.
Fear is the one thing that simply cannot be allowed to grow in a group. Any type of fear for other people or the fear that ones own ideas/suggestions are not up par, is harmful. First attempts usually suck. Another famous example here is how it took Edison thousands of tries before he got the light bulb working. So how do we keep the balance of coming up with many ideas, which increases our chances of getting the right idea, while working hard enough on an idea to get it right?
I believe in the end that we need to accept failures. First off, in our initial ideas and second in our attempts to realize which ever idea we choose to implement.
And to accept failure means to overcome fear.