4
5
Forget this myth
Forget this myth
A nice
boss is
best
Pick one
thing
and do
it well
Some women have a tendency to
overedit. ‘Most of us have heard
that men often apply for a job
when they are partially qualified,
while women wait until they meet
the job criteria 100 per cent,’ says
Grant. ‘That same tendency gets
applied to idea generation.’ But
if you want to increase your odds
of doing great work, you need to
do lots of work, says psychologist
Dean Keith Simonton.
One reason history has fewer
eminent women creators, Grant
posits, is that caregiving gave
women less time to churn out
the pure volume of ideas needed
to stumble upon something
brilliant. Your challenge, should
you choose to accept it: triple the
number of ideas you generate, and
expect lots of them to fail.
Build up a ‘microcommunity’- a Facebook group, a couple of
work friends – to encourage you
and help you decide which are
worth pursuing... and which
are not. Says Grant, ‘Everybody
needs to surround themselves
with people who can laugh at
their dumb ideas.’ #
says, your first idea will likely
be a conventional one. If you set
it aside while your brain keeps
working in the background, the
result may be more original ideas.
Taking longer to settle on
your plan could open your mind
to improvisation, as King proved.
The idea is not to put off work
until the last minute, but to begin
generating possibilities and then
take a break. Do boring tasks
first, so you have mental energy
in reserve. Then toggle back to
the thinky stuff. ‘I sometimes
put writing away midsentence,’
Grant says. ‘When I come back
later, I have the perspective to
say, “Who wrote this garbage?”’
Studies also show that people
tend to be their most creative
when they are less focused. If
you’re a night owl, try writing
first thing in the morning. If you
are a morning person, brain
storm before bed. Knead some
ideas around in your head, leave
them to rise while you dream,
and you may wake up with more
fullybaked thoughts.Whatever our feelings about
‘nice guys’ in our afterhours
(great for moving couches; hard
to get excited about), having one
as a boss seems like a win. The
hitch is that though an agreeable
boss might love you, they may
hate conflict. ‘You will gravitate
towards people who are friendly,’
says Grant, ‘but they’re at risk of
being doormats. They may have
a hard time fighting for you.’We tend to value a coworker’s
outward style of interacting (is
she cuddly or spiky?) while we
should be considering her inner
motives (is she a giver who cares
about you and the company, or is
she a taker who only cares about
herself?). As long as they have
your best interests at heart, more
disagreeable people make some of
the best bosses, Grant says. ‘They
show tough love.’ It’s better to
work for a Chandler Bing (cynical
hard shell with a sweet, creamy
filling) than for a Ross Geller (a
teddy bear stuffed with anger
issues). What if you want to build
support for a leftfield idea but
you have a sweetheart boss who
is unlikely to go out on a limb?
Ask for advice, suggests Grant.
Say, ‘I appreciate that you have
my back; now I want to hear from
people who aren’t disposed to like
my ideas. Who in the company
could give me tough feedback?’YOUR
CHALLENGE:
TRIPLE THE
NUMBER OF
IDEAS YOU
GENERATE,
AND EXPECT
LOTS OF THEM
TO FAIL.
WORDS BY SARA AUSTIN. GETTY IMAGES
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