By Nathan Siegel
culled from:http://www.ozy.com
Here’s some advice for your next meeting: Hold thy tongue. Total freedom of speech, new research shows, has
the potential to squash creativity. As it turns out, if you’re in a
group of both men and women, abiding to standards of political
correctness can help generate far better ideas than simply letting the
conversation run wild.
This is a surprise. For years, conventional
wisdom has suggested that anarchy breeds creativity, says lead author
Jack Goncalo, an associate professor of organizational behavior. But in
reality, it seems like a bit of structure can go a long way: “Anything
that reduces the uncertainty,” Goncalo says, especially for mixed-gender
groups, helps get the juices flowing. The Cornell
researchers who figured this out tasked 483 students of both genders
with a problem: What business should be built in an empty lot? The
groups that were politically correct — for instance, who
avoided sexist language — generated a greater number of ideas, and more
novel ideas, than groups operating without the norm.
Why? When men and women enter the same space, both
genders need to know what to expect, experts say, making some
pre-defined rules helpful. For women, the ability to express ideas
without fear of being patronized is key. For men, knowing what could put
them in the doghouse is a useful metric.
Many of us intuitively get what it means to be PC.
But here’s the twist: Same-sex groups were far less creative when they had to abide by the political correctness standards. (Researchers didn’t ask about factors such as race and sexuality.) In
a group of all dudes, for example, members were already, at least
superficially, on the same page and unlikely to gender-offend. A
standard of political correctness was an unnecessary mental burden. For
women, much etiquette was already implicitly understood in the
single-gendered group.
The upshot, for the researchers? Use the “political
correctness” standard, explicitly. Don’t just say “be polite” or “be
sensitive.” As annoying as the phrase may be, many of us intuitively get
what it means to be PC, which means there’s little room for confusion,
says Goncalo. Demanding political correctness is more “provocative,” he
admits. But it’s also more useful, if you want to get your teams or
classrooms thinking better.
Of course, plenty of folks maintain that constraints
aren’t conducive to either competition or creativity. Worrying about
what to say and what not to say is precious brainpower that could go
toward creative thinking, says Kimberly Elsbach, professor of
organizational behavior at the University of California, Davis. “It’s
added mental stress.” Elsbach acknowledges that one person’s loss
may be another’s gain, and for the good of the group as a whole. So the
next time you want to think outside the box, stop before you “man up.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment