Monday, August 10, 2009

the devil's advocate


Just started reading The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley of IDEO fame. On the jacket there's a quote from Seth Godin '...there's a nugget on every page'.

This is true, so far.

In the intro Tom talks about 'The Devil's Advocate'.

This is the person WE ALL KNOW, who - in new idea development sessions - says 'Let me just play Devil’s Advocate for a minute…' and then proceeds to be the force for negativity that manifests to crush new concepts and potentially innovative ideas before they have even had a chance to grow.

Tom says 'This person represents a subtle yet toxic danger to your organization’s cause, greatly diminishing the chance for innovation with their negativity and naysaying.'

Get this person out of the room, immediately.

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