Great post. This reminds me of a New Yorker article, Groupthink, from a couple of years ago[0]. Essentially, disagreement fosters creativity, not brainstorming platitudes like 'there are no wrong ideas'.
An excerpt:
...dissent stimulates new ideas because it encourages
us to engage more fully with the work of others and to
reassess our viewpoints. “There’s this Pollyannaish
notion that the most important thing to do when working
together is stay positive and get along, to not hurt
anyone’s feelings,” she says. “Well, that’s just wrong.
Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will
always be more productive. True creativity requires
some trade-offs.”
The article is terrific and I'm mentally made note of 3 techniques that I've used over the past few years:
1. Thinking on your own can lead to more solutions than thinking in a group.
2. Dissent and constraints stimulate creativity.
3. Insane, off-the-wall, unproductive ideas can stimulate creativity in everyone else.
I dunno, I'm not totally sold... Often times I've worked with people who I pretty much thought were bad engineers and they were the most boisterous. I'm not saying being boisterous in itself is bad, but it's like it was there primary weapon to make EVERYTHING an issue.
Healthy debate is good, but... I dunno. I hate giving bad engineers more ammo to act crazy.
I believe that the article was talking about disagreement, critique, and debate. Being "noisy" and "boisterous" sounds like something else entirely. Productive debate ought to be calm, civil, rational, and without inflated egos.
An excerpt:
The article is terrific and I'm mentally made note of 3 techniques that I've used over the past few years:1. Thinking on your own can lead to more solutions than thinking in a group.
2. Dissent and constraints stimulate creativity.
3. Insane, off-the-wall, unproductive ideas can stimulate creativity in everyone else.
[0] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/30/groupthink