Fear shows up a lot in our thinking processes. Is this a stupid question? Is this creative? What will people think if I say that? Is this clever? Am I clever?
One of the effects of this fear is that we censor ourselves. We don’t ask questions we genuinely have, we don’t say things we believe, we don’t share ideas that spontaneously arise.
Now, there’s a place for self-censorship - everyone doesn’t need to hear my unfiltered stream of consciousness. But, like most good things, we can have too much of it. And in my experience helping people think better, most people habitually censor their thinking too much. And so what most people benefit from is over-indexing in the other direction - deliberately trying to be freer and braver in their thinking.
Yeah, sure - but how? That’s often where rubber hits road, isn’t it? Not the what, but the how.
Well, the great theatre teacher Keith Johnstone (apparently, all new employees at Palantir are given and have to read his most influential book “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, but we can’t blame him for that) has a suggestion. It’s striking in its simplicity and staggering in its effectiveness.
Accept the first idea, he says.
What’s that mean?
In practicing improvisation with people, Johnstone noticed that people would try to be original or funny or whatever it was they thought was demanded - basically, they strove to be good, to fulfil some standard. And Johnstone discovered that this was counter-productive. People felt under pressure and ended up blocking and censoring themselves.
So he taught them: accept the first idea. Whatever it is, no matter how dull or stupid or whatever it seems, just accept it. Say it. Use it. Go with it. And when students did that, something surprising happened - they ended up being fluently creative, effortlessly funny.
Johnstone did this exercise in the context of creative thinking, but it can be used in all kinds of thinking, really. Try it yourself - just experiment with it, play around with accepting the first idea in some particular situation or in thinking through an issue.
Don’t try to be original or clever or insightful or funny - don’t try to be anything at all. Just accept the first idea that comes, and keep accepting it. See what happens, notice how it feels, how your thinking and your experience are changed by it. And then file it away as another useful little tool in your thinking toolbox.