In defense of bad ideas.

“Creativity is fueled by the permission to allow yourself to have bad ideas.” — Randall Blaugh

Before I even spoke, I knew my idea was a dud. I muddled it by saying, “this probably won’t work, but…” I felt the pang of instant regret. On cue, the idea fell flat. It was met with mostly silence, a couple of mumbles, an audible sigh and even a faint sing-songy “nooo….” Hesitantly, it was added to the whiteboard with all of the much better ideas, none of which were really hitting the mark.

In frustration, I took a deep breath with a long exhale, pressed three fingers to my forehead, bowed my head and shut my eyes for several seconds. I glanced over at my partner. His eyes were squinted and his gaze was fixed on the whiteboard. I’d seen this look many times. He had something. He leaned forward and pressed his arms out in front of him and up into the air. Suddenly, he was animated. “Hang on a second! What if we…” and out came the idea we’d been searching for.

In the aftermath of the meeting, my partner said to me, “thank God you didn’t hold back that last idea. I don’t think we would have landed the plane without it.” My “bad” idea had been the catalyst for a great solution.

We’ve all experienced moments like this. If we give “bad,” whimsical, left field or half-baked ideas room to breathe, the benefits far outweigh the costs. It requires practice, personal discipline and a welcoming environment, but you can develop the habits and psychological safety to make bad ideas work for you or your organization. Here’s the top five reasons to give yourself permission and freedom to let bad ideas come to light.

Bad ideas make us more creative

Don’t fall into the trap that some people are creative and others aren’t. We are all creative. Creativity is a skill that can be developed and practiced just like any other skill. The freedom to fail, make mistakes and go the wrong way are the primary drivers behind building creativity. Allowing yourself to voice, share and even try out some of your bad ideas is the first step to becoming more creative.

Bad ideas help us to volume ideate

When we hold back ideas, we interrupt our train of thought, and we become more rigid and less open. It gums up the works. When we bring forth bad ideas and just let them flow, we remain engaged in the process, open to possibility and we stay in generation mode. When it comes to ideation, quality is found within quantity. The more ideas we have, the better ideas we have. As a result, it’s nearly impossible to come up with a great idea without giving life to some of your bad ideas.

Bad ideas help us get unstuck

Sometimes the best use for a bad idea is just to get us unstuck. Being stuck is usually a permission problem. You’ve got good ideas in your head, but something — (often perfectionism, comparison or fear of failure) is holding them back. In these cases, you can assign yourself or your team the task of coming up with some number of unworkable ideas only. In most cases, you’ll be back to generating good ideas before the end of the exercise.

Bad ideas lead to good ideas

Bad ideas can spark a change in perspective or create a connection that leads to a great idea. We think in narratives, and sometimes a bad idea is the missing link in the story we’re trying to tell. Additionally, keeping ourselves open to bad ideas makes it easier to think out of the box and make divergent or unconventional leaps. Other times a singular bad idea can be synthesized or converged with another idea to create something workable.

Sometimes bad ideas are good ideas

We’ve all seen this one happen. Someone proposes an idea, everyone hates it, and then in time, the group circles back to realize that the idea was outstanding as originally proposed. This often happens with divergent ideas that break conventional wisdom or violate a pattern. Very often these are game changing, organizational-shifting ideas. How often are these types of ideas not voiced and therefore never considered? A lot.

Final Thoughts

It’s human nature to feel uneasy throwing out a half-baked or left field idea. It’s also human nature to feel frustrated with the person who brought it up. These two factors give rise to fear. It’s scary to go out on a limb. The antidote to fear is courage, and courage is like oxygen for things like creativity, innovation and taking bold action. Embracing our bad ideas and giving them space is a great place to start building and practicing the courage we need.