Killer expressions mean the death of every idea

One of the things that is missing when a homogeneus group starts looking for an idea is the playful, creative component in the idea generation process. If the inside view predominates in the search, then the search will not get up to speed however good it may methodically be. Instead of helping the search for ideas, the participants put the brakes on. Career considerations, possessiveness, hierarchical considerations and self-censor stand in the foreground, as shown in the famous “killer expressions”:

• I already know that
• We’ve tried that before
• The competition already does that
• It’s too much expensive
• We can’t do that
• There are technical difficulties
• The boss will say no to that
• It doesn’t fit our image
• We’ll make ourselves look ridiculous
• We don’t know enough about that
• That can’t be implemented..

“People who say not to everything attack fresh ideas like sharks”

From the book  “The Idea Machine: How ideas can be produced industrially”, by Nadja Schnetzler.