Motivation on the Run

Have you ever caught yourself cutting down someone’s idea before it even escapes their lips? This article gives a good rundown on the effect of the negative on creativity. Good stuff!

Negative types stifle creativity - Jobs - Times Online

THERE’S one on every team, and if you’re really lucky, two — doom-mongering negative types who slam every bright suggestion with the words: “It’ll never work.”

Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Stanford Graduate School of Business, says that being critical is often interpreted as a sign of intelligence in business. “The fastest way for me to seem smart is to cut you down. So you come up with an idea, and I come up with a thousand different reasons why that idea won’t work. Now everyone sees you as dumb and me as smart — and we’ve created an environment where no one wants to come up with ideas.”

Nobody wants to come up with ideas or work with you and if you’re the boss, forget it. As we have learnt in this series, you need a range of soft skills to get on in the world of work, and they become more important the higher you climb on the corporate ladder.

A study by the Centre for Creative Leadership found that “effective leaders . . . blend the softer leadership skills . . . with the tough skills needed to keep an organisation afloat during difficult times”.

[tags]creativity, negative comments, leaders[/tags]