Last week I wrote about the idea killing phrase “Yes, But”. The following evening I joined some colleagues to discuss an ecommerce project they’re working on.

And yes, you guessed it – I caught myself saying “Yes, but…” I was killing their ideas. The good news is that after the first occurrence I caught myself  and was far more supportive and constructive.

What struck me was how easy it was to be negative. Here’s why.

It appears that we are “hard wired” to be negative, or at least to be far more cognitive to the negative. It goes back to our our primitive beginnings when it was necessary for us, as a species, to be constantly on the look out for potential sources of danger.

According to Cognitive researcher Nancy Etcoff, in her Feb 2004 TED presentation

Our negative system is extremely sensitive. It is our sentinal. It is there to protect us from danger.

The following screen shot of one of Nancy’s slides points out the extent of our “natural” negative bias

What’s really interesting here is the (happy) Marriage Formula:

a ratio of 5 positive remarks or inter-actions to 1 negative remark or interaction.

If we extend this into our innovation and creative thinking environment we can see how damaging negative comments can be. We have to work 5 times as hard to overcome a single negative response.

Related Posts:

• getting other people to contribute
• An honest look at the problem – Gateway to the Solution
• 11 Creativity bites

Tags: Ideas, Leadership, Problem Solving, Research