I’m intensely protective of the creative process. It needs to be nurtured and cared for in its fragile infancy, before ideas are fully formed.

Ideas need to be moved forward gently and carefully, while teasing out their shape and structure. Every contributor needs to be afforded the headspace to go into all the nooks and crannies of their creativity, and explore hidden potential without hesitation or stifling judgment. This is not typically a matter of individual personality or psychological fortitude; even those who seem outwardly resilient alter their patterns of exploration based on some measure of self-doubt, external factors, or interpersonal dynamics. This usually happens imperceptively and subconsciously, and there are no guarantees that these subtle course alterations are for the better.

The creative process depends on open-mindedness and a nurturing, supportive attitude. In this regard, it is not unlike therapy – especially when the process is collective and collaborative. The realm of ideas needs to be a safe space for all participants, where they can feel secure in probing for those elusive impulses that may or may not deliver something of substance. The key response should always be “yes, and…”, or a “maybe”, as opposed to a flat “no”. The rule of thumb must be to suspend judgment and disbelief, and move forward with the assumption that every grain of sand might potentially be hiding a speck of gold. Otherwise, the risk is that viable ideas are overlooked, or modified in ways that do not fully leverage their potential. Ideas are constantly evolving, so to regard them as being in stasis is simply ignoring the inherent potential.

Issuing opinions or judgments is almost always premature while ideas are still congealing. While the instinct to judge, to limit and to reject is profoundly human – it is related to our fight-or-flight instincts – it is deeply at odds with the ideation process. Rejection is an expression of fear, whereas acceptance is an expression of love. Evaluation inserted too early in the ideation process only serves to restrict the freedom of movement of ideas before they are fully formed, especially if such evaluation is based on personal bias and hypotheticals – almost regardless of how well informed such hypotheticals may be. Only when an idea has been given a clear shape and direction is it meaningful to evaluate it, and decide how to proceed, and this “ready” state is not always immediately apparent.

Therefore, there is really no need to rush to judgment, at any stage of the ideation process. Let the process take its time. Every single decision already happens under the natural pressure of second-guessing and doubt; that is a fully normal condition in navigating the ambiguity of the unknown and unseen. We must, as creatives, strive to lessen these doubts, and not succumb to self-censorship. This is especially true in collaborative ideation, as we can unwittingly have a censoring and suppressing effect on others by merely issuing an opinion, and this often leads to the halting of forward momentum, the stifling of creativity, and/or the strangling of the flow of thought. Even those who may seem outwardly resilient to such undue influence are subject to these effects, and those who lack the necessary understanding of these psychological group dynamics are typically better removed from the process, as their presence can be quite destructive. This calls for some self-awareness: I have myself had this effect on ideation on occasion, and have had to bow out of the process for that reason.

Instead, what we need to do as creatives is to welcome, document and catalogue ideas, move on to the next idea, and then see if patterns emerge where certain concepts share similarities, or may contradict each other to the point where it eventually becomes necessary to pick a path. There is ample time for judgment at the end of this process, but to pre-empt the potential value of an idea before it has fully revealed itself is never productive. Though picking paths may give a false sense of progression, it does not enhance ideation to choose a direction too narrowly before it is well understood where a path may lead to; it only restricts options in a manner that is rarely well considered or constructive. Some paths may converge, and some may diverge, but they might all lead to meaningful destinations.

If we apply a divergent mindset, as opposed to a convergent one, we ensure that we explore more possibilities and possible combinations of ideas, and even if some of these possibilities turn out to not be applicable for the task at hand, they very often lead to new trains of thought, and spawn new ideas which may serve some other purpose at a later point. We do ourselves a disservice by rejecting them.

This is why the true value of an idea can never just be assessed within the narrow confines of one specific objective. An idea always has value, it just needs to be nurtured, appreciated and considered in the right light.