Idea: The Divergent And The Convergent

How can an agency leader keep their team innovative?

This idea changed my life. Learn how it can change yours.

I borrowed this idea from the discipline of Design Thinking – a process invented by wizards in ivory towers to drive innovation in product design. Different steps of the design thinking process are either divergent (leading to lots of ideas) or convergent (reducing the number of ideas). I thought to myself “why not structure the roles of my team members that way?”

I organize my department with a simple structure in order to maximize innovation: team members are to act as a divergent force for innovation. They can throw as many ideas as they want at the leadership team. When they read about a cool SEO tactic or new strategy they want to try out, they can pitch the idea to leadership.

Leadership acts as the convergent force; you can think of us as a filter. We are going to decide to adopt some of their ideas, and we’re going to shoot some down. Their job is to keep firing off ideas, even the moonshots.

Before I was promoted to department head, I spent the first four years I worked at my current agency throwing hair-brained ideas at the co-founder, and it worked – we have ended up crafting excellent digital marketing proposal templates. And to put things into perspective, he probably shot down 80% to 90% of my suggestions. But that did not matter.

This simple structure works for several reasons:

The leadership team has perspective that their team members do not have – this allows them to better act as a filter. Leadership has a wider view of the company as a whole, of resource constraints, of capabilities & expertise, etc.

Our team members, on the other hand, are not constrained by these limitations. Thus, they are free to be creative and unbiased by any negativity. I encourage them to fire off ideas without judging them – even moonshots – to keep their creativity from getting blocked.

It’s important to note that we create an environment where it’s safe for them to be wrong. As a result, my team members are constantly making suggestions and offering creative insights. This effectively results in a consistent improvement our strategy, processes, and templates.

Every few months we look back and see growth – and that is one of the ways that I define departmental success.

Key Takeaway:

Let the folks on the bottom of the org chart act as a divergent & creative force for innovation. Let the folks on the top of the org chart act as a convergent force or filter.

– ordinary_wylie

This idea changed my life. Let me know how it changes yours in the comments below.