Rules of Thinking, The

RULE 53

Loosen up

I remember a group discussion at work where we were supposed to be brainstorming ways to help our staff feel appreciated. The idea with brainstorming, of course, is that all ideas are welcome as a jumping off point and now is not the time to be negative. One member of the group, however, responded to almost every suggestion negatively. His favoured expressions were, ‘That wouldn’t work’ and ‘We’ve always done it this way before’. When I asked him for ideas of his own he didn’t have any.

For some reason this sticks in my mind because it was one of the most extreme examples I’ve seen of this kind of inflexibility. The colleague in question simply couldn’t see beyond his current mindset, was unable to imagine solutions he’d ...