This video clip is kind of funny but I think that it makes a few good points. I made an earlier post about whether negative people are smarter. I got some of the information for that post from a book called The Knowing-Doing Gap. To me this video is about barriers. Whether the barrier is real or perceived really makes no difference. If it stops your group from taking productive action, it is a barrier.

One barrier that I have been thinking about lately is the Devil’s Advocate. I am sure that you know the person. During a team meeting they say, “Let me play Devil’s Advocate here..” It really is a perfect set-up. The person doing the criticising is not ever held accountable becasue they are just voicing what “others” will say. They can attack any idea without owning the comments.

Tom Kelley, author of the book The Ten Faces of Innovation (2005), does a nice job of pointing out why the Devil’s Advocate is harmful to team processes. He writes, “Why is this persona so damning? Because the Devil’s Advocate encourages idea-wreckers to assume the most negative possible perspective, one that sees only the downside, the problems, the dissasters-in-waiting. Once the floodgates open, they can drown a new initiative in negativity.”

New ideas begin as fragile entities. Few ever turn into reality and there are plenty of ideas that will be discarded after careful consideration. Not every idea is a good one, a practical one, or one that forever changes the school. Ideas that do not measure up will whither under close scrutiny. There is no need to hasten the fate of every idea.

Without question there are always plenty of reasons not to do something. In addition, there will be plenty of time for open debate once things get rolling. Why kill an idea in its infancy by considering only one side of the story?

Thanks for your help. I hadn’t seen the end to this scenario so it was even more funny this time. I’d like to leave you with something profound, but I can’t top your theorhetical verbage tonight. One for you and again, thanks.

Pam:

Glad you logged on, welcome. Please come back and share your thoughts. I will mention your project (and Mike’s) to Kate. She will make arrangements to get together with you.

Hey Good Buddy,
This is exciting. We have a couple more people that would like to be trained as well. When the topic of technological portfolios came up during our meetings today, someone mentioned we can get blogs from Gaggle. Do you know anything about that?
PR

Hi Pam:

I will call Ros tomorrow and figure out how to get Kate over there. We have been thinking about electronic portfolios a lot lately. Hopefully we can get that working. I have not heard about blogs through Gaggle. We can definitely look into it, though.

Jeff