Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as an Innovation Tool? Yes – it Works!
Innovation flourishes in diverse environments where individuals feel empowered to share their ideas freely. Unfortunately, too often in group ideation settings, introverted, analytical and neurodivergent individuals can feel overshadowed by their extroverted and expressive peers. Cultural differences often come into play as well, making some participants less comfortable publicly taking creative risks than others. As someone with Adult ADHD, I’ve experienced this many times myself. And after facilitating hundreds of group ideation sessions for clients of all shapes and sizes, I’ve seen it in action countless times.
Fortunately, applying core principles from behavioral psychology and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) can help organizations create an inclusive atmosphere that encourages all participants to contribute and collaborate effectively. Here's how:
Behavioral Activation for All: In group settings, behavioral activation involves encouraging all participants to lean-into the ideation process actively. Leaders can facilitate this by using turn-taking as a way to thoughtfully include everyone around the table. The process helps keep extrovert-expressives to just one idea, while also inviting quieter members to share their thoughts. In other words, it creates both accountability and participation. Facilitators can provide structured prompts to help remove hierarchy and make the environment more equitable. By making everyone around the table feel valued and included, everyone is more likely to feel comfortable expressing their ideas.
Affirmation and Positive Reinforcement: Positive reinforcement is something I hear a lot in my side-hustle as a professional dog trainer. It’s the idea that one is adding something to an environment (in behavior science, positive means one is adding something), to help increase the likelihood that a desired behavior will repeat (reinforcement of the behavior). In the context of group ideation, this couldn’t be more essential. Most people appreciate a bit of affirmation in general. And creative ideation is often a very scary, risky environment in which affirmation is especially necessary. A verbal or written affirmation is something leaders can easily add to the ideation environment (positive) to help ensure the behavior of generating ideas repeats (reinforcement). Celebrating every contribution, regardless of its size or perceived significance, creates a supportive atmosphere where individuals feel valued and validated. Encouraging feedback that focuses on an idea’s kernel of potential, rather than solely on criticism, fosters a culture of encouragement and mutual respect.
Cognitive Restructuring to Overcome Barriers: Cognitive restructuring is a reframing technique to help individuals overcome limiting beliefs and self-doubt. In a group setting, this involves challenging pre-conceived assumptions about the merits of one's own contributions, while fostering a growth mindset that embraces experimentation and real-time learning. It’s key to create structure in ideation sessions that make experimentation and “failure” seem fun, never negative. By reframing challenges as opportunities for growth and emphasizing the value of diverse perspectives, participants can overcome barriers to expressing their ideas confidently.
Facilitating Behavioral Experiments: Group ideation sessions provide an ideal environment for conducting behavioral experiments. It’s key to encourage participants to prototype their ideas, test their hypotheses, and explore wildly different approaches. Making this fun and collaborative promotes a culture where experimentation and iteration don’t feel procedurally onerous, or psychologically risky. By teaching and reinforcing the iterative nature of the creative process and valuing learning through trial and error, individuals feel empowered to take creative risks and contribute actively to the group's collective goals. Value-adding schools of thought around this idea are found in both Design Thinking and Agile.
Creating a Supportive Environment: Environmental design plays a crucial role in shaping behavior and fostering creativity. Group ideation spaces should be designed to promote inclusivity and collaboration, with features such as comfortable seating arrangements, designated brainstorming areas, and tools for visualizing ideas. Teams should be thoughtfully arranged to ensure they are diverse in many ways – across different levels of seniority, functional disciplines, geographies, race and ethnicity, cultural context, personality and communication styles, and so on. Lead work sessions with team-building activities and icebreakers to help build rapport among participants and create a sense of psychological safety where all voices are heard and all viewpoints are truly valued.
Not a lot of folks spend time joining-up the ideas of CBT, Design Thinking, Agile and creative ideation. But there’s really a powerful sweet spot at the center of those four things, that helps unlock innovation from everywhere. It helps create lean-in and buy-in among even among the underdogs: the introverts, analyticals, neurodivergents, and really anyone who had their hand slapped for offering an idea at any point in their career.
By applying CBT in group ideation settings, leaders can create an environment where everyone feels empowered to express their ideas and accountable for making contributions. Embracing diversity of thought and fostering a culture of inclusivity not only accelerates innovation but also drives the bottom line.
