Your good ideas may not always be welcomed by colleagues
You don't have to be a jerk to come up with fresh and original
ideas, but sometimes being disagreeable is just what's needed to sell your
brainchild successfully to others.
However, difficult or irritating people
should be aware of the social context in which they are presenting their ideas.
A pushy strategy will not always be equally successful, warn Samuel Hunter of
Pennsylvania State University and Lily Cushenbery of Stony Brook University in
the US, in an article in Springer's Journal of Business and Psychology.
People are often labelled as jerks if they are disagreeable by
nature, overly confident, dominant, argumentative, egotistic, headstrong or
sometimes even hostile. It's widely touted in the popular press that being so
direct and forceful was what made innovators such as Steve Jobs and Thomas
Edison successful.
In their first study, 201
students from a large Northeastern university in the US completed personality
tests before strategizing together in groups of three to develop a marketing
campaign.
In the second study, involving 291 people, Hunter and Cushenbery used
an online chat environment to investigate how being in the presence of other
creative and supportive colleagues helped people to share their ideas more
freely.
The first study showed that people do not need to be jerks to
have fresh ideas. However, such an attitude helps when you want to steamroll
your ideas so that others will accept them. Findings from the second study
highlighted how important the social context is in which new ideas are being
shared.
Hunter and Cushenbery established that being disagreeable helps when
you want to push your new ideas ahead or when you find yourself in a situation
that is not necessarily open to original thoughts or changes. This obnoxious
attitude can, however, backfire if you are working within a supportive,
creative group in which ideas are shared freely.
"It seems that being a 'jerk' may not be directly linked to
who generates original ideas, but such qualities may be useful if the situation
dictates that a bit of a fight is needed to get those original ideas heard and
used by others," says Hunter in summarizing the results.
"Disagreeable personalities may be helpful in combating the
challenges faced in the innovation process, but social context is also
critical," elaborates Cushenbery. "In particular, an environment
supportive of original thinking may negate the utility of disagreeableness and,
in fact, disagreeableness may hamper the originality of ideas shared."
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Springer Science+Business Media. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
Samuel T. Hunter, Lily Cushenbery. Is Being a Jerk
Necessary for Originality? Examining the Role of Disagreeableness in the
Sharing and Utilization of Original Ideas. Journal of Business and
Psychology, 2014; DOI: 10.1007/s10869-014-9386-1
Cite This Page:
Springer Science+Business Media. "Office jerks beware: Your
good ideas may not always be welcomed by colleagues." Science Daily,
8 December 2014.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141208093200.htm>.
