Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

Decisions might be better when teams don’t get along

Brainstorming was developed over 60 years ago, along with its key concept that ‘no idea is a bad idea’. But could the opposite be true, is brainstorming stifling, rather than unleashing, our creativity? In environments in which ideas go unchallenged, there are techniques that can improve creativity by encouraging criticism.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Osborn, A. Applied Imagination. Principles and Procedures of Creative Writing (Scribner, 1954)

  2. Nemeth, C. J., Personnaz, B., Personnaz, M. & Goncalo, J. A. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 34, 365–374 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Sutton, R. Weird Ideas that Work. 11 ½ Practices for Promotion, Managing and Sustaining Innovation (Free Press, 2002)

  4. Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Red Teaming (Microsoft, 2014); http://go.nature.com/2oLMh4v

  5. Sunstein, C. R. & Hastie, R. Harvard Bus. Rev. 12, 90–98 (2014).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Kahneman, D. Thinking Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Burkus.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Burkus, D. Decisions might be better when teams don’t get along. Nat Hum Behav 1, 0109 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0109

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0109

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing