Welcome wild and outrageous ideas
Explicitly invite the absurd — it’s easier to tame a wild idea than to enliven a dull one.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Explicitly invite the absurd — it’s easier to tame a wild idea than to enliven a dull one.
- Why it works: Wild ideas serve two functions: they expand the search space (the conceptual territory the group is willing to occupy), and they provide raw material for combination — a genuinely outrageous idea often contains a workable kernel. Psychological safety research confirms that groups that signal safety for unusual input generate more diverse output, which correlates with finding novel solutions.
- Evidence: Plausible mechanism, limited direct outcome data.
- Avoid: Welcoming wild ideas verbally but rewarding only the reasonable ones with attention, which immediately signals that "wild" is actually penalized.
Why it works
Wild ideas serve two functions: they expand the search space (the conceptual territory the group is willing to occupy), and they provide raw material for combination — a genuinely outrageous idea often contains a workable kernel. Psychological safety research confirms that groups that signal safety for unusual input generate more diverse output, which correlates with finding novel solutions.
How to do it
- 1Give explicit permission at the start: "The wilder the better — impossible is fine."
- 2Reward the most outrageous contribution with light recognition to anchor the norm.
- 3Never explain why an idea is impractical during the generation phase — just add it.
- 4Later, mine wild ideas for fragments: "What’s the kernel of this that could work?"
What the evidence says
MechanisticPsychological safety research supports the idea that explicit permission for unusual input increases the range of ideas generated. Mining extreme ideas for useful fragments is mechanistically coherent but not well-isolated in controlled trials.
Honest caveat: The value of wild ideas depends on the harvest step — groups that generate outrageous ideas but never revisit them for kernels get no benefit from the range.
- — Edmondson (1999), psychological safety in teams, Administrative Science Quarterly
Common mistake
Welcoming wild ideas verbally but rewarding only the reasonable ones with attention, which immediately signals that "wild" is actually penalized.
IX Coach flags your most unusual ideas rather than filtering them, and later prompts you to mine them for practical fragments before the session closes.
Practice this with IX Coach →