You Can’t Ask People to Think Differently

We often tell people to think differently.

I’ve never really understood what we expect that to mean.

Think differently from what?

If everyone is looking at the same problems, sitting in the same meetings, reading the same documents, speaking to the same people, and operating within the same assumptions, why would we expect radically different ideas?

You cannot create different thinking with the same inputs.

Most people aren't short of creativity.

They are short of exposure.

The more different things you see, the more connections you can make between them.

A product designer who spends time with support will see different problems.

An engineer who sits with customers will notice different constraints.

A marketer who understands the product deeply will find different stories.

A researcher who understands the business will ask different questions.

This is why I think some of the best ideas come from collisions.

Not brainstorming sessions.

Collisions.

Different disciplines.

Different experiences.

Different levels of proximity to a problem.

Different assumptions meeting each other.

The goal isn't to get everyone involved in everything.

That would create its own kind of chaos.

The goal is to make sure people aren't trapped inside their own context.

Because context is useful until it becomes a blind spot.

Curiosity needs permission

There is another side to this.

Even when people see something interesting, they need to feel safe enough to say it.

A lot of organisations say they want people to challenge assumptions.

But what they actually reward is being right.

Those are very different cultures.

If the consequence of asking a difficult question is being labelled negative, difficult, or not aligned, people quickly learn to stop asking.

They become very good at reading the room.

And once people start optimising for the room instead of the problem, innovation disappears.

You cannot ask people to challenge the status quo while punishing them for challenging it.

Creating a culture of innovation therefore isn't about telling people to be more creative.

It is about making initiative safe.

Someone should be able to say:

I don't think this is working.

Why do we do it this way?

What if we tried something completely different?

I know this isn't my area, but I've noticed something.

Those questions are valuable even when the person asking them is wrong.

Because sometimes being wrong is the shortest route to finding the right question.

Visibility creates participation

I also think people often confuse inclusion with participation.

You don't need everyone working on an innovation to benefit from their perspective.

But people need visibility into what is being explored.

Otherwise, innovation becomes something that happens inside small groups while everyone else watches the outcome.

I would rather create regular spaces where people can see what others are working on, ask questions, contribute perspectives, and challenge assumptions.

Not another status meeting.

A place to show unfinished things.

A place where something can still change because someone saw it and said:

Have you considered this?

That is often where the best ideas emerge.

And I think participation should rotate.

The same five people shouldn't become the company's permanent innovation committee.

Different people notice different things.

Someone new to a problem might ask the obvious question that everyone else stopped asking three years ago.

Someone deeply experienced might notice a constraint that everyone else missed.

Both are useful.

Innovation is a habit

This is why I don't think innovation can be created through an annual hackathon.

You can manufacture activity for a day.

You cannot manufacture curiosity.

A culture of innovation is built through small repeated behaviours.

Ask better questions.

Talk to someone outside your team.

Show unfinished work.

Share something you learned.

Challenge an assumption.

Try something small.

Tell people what didn't work.

Do it again.

Eventually, it becomes normal.

And that is the point.

Innovation shouldn't feel like an event.

It should feel like how people behave when they care about the work.

The strongest cultures I've experienced weren't cultures where everyone was constantly trying to invent something.

They were cultures where people felt responsible for making things better.

That distinction matters.

You don't need everyone to be an inventor.

You need everyone to feel that they have permission to notice.

Because noticing is where it starts.

Someone sees friction.

Someone asks why.

Someone brings a different perspective.

Someone tries something.

Someone learns.

And eventually, something changes.

That is what thinking differently actually looks like.

Not more brainstorming.

Not more innovation workshops.

Not more posters telling people to challenge the status quo.

Different inputs. More curiosity. More collisions. More safety to question.

Give people those things consistently enough, and you don't have to ask them to think differently.

They just will.