Coaching practices for Obvious Veto Creativity
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Obvious Veto Creativity, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- The first decent idea shows up and I grab it and call it done
- Every fresh idea gets shot down the second it’s spoken
- We decide things by group vote and the loud idea-lovers always carry the room, while the one person whose gut is usually right about what won’t work gets drowned out
- An idea barely forms in my head before I’ve already torn it apart
- Underneath it all I’m carrying these quiet convictions
Practices that may help
- The obvious veto: reject the first three ideas before keeping any
Force yourself to generate more by vetoing the first plausible ideas — they are almost always the most obvious ones.
Deliberate Constraints, Made Practical - Green hat: generate new ideas and creative possibilities
The green hat is for generating alternatives and possibilities without evaluation — quantity and novelty over quality and correctness.
Six Thinking Hats, Made Practical - Route decisions to your Discernment genius
Evaluation decisions drain Wonder and Tenacity geniuses — protect your evaluators and route decisions to them.
The 6 Types of Working Genius (Patrick Lencioni) - Defer judgment during ideation
Separate generating ideas from evaluating them — criticism comes later, never during.
Osborn’s Brainstorming Rules, Made Practical - Work the affirmations and blurts
Surface the negative beliefs about your creativity ("blurts"), then counter them deliberately.
The Artist’s Way, Made Practical - Impose a deliberate constraint
Add an artificial limit (a rule, a shape, a forbidden option) to block the obvious path.
Why Constraints Boost Creativity - Defer all judgment during ideation
Separate the generating phase from the evaluating phase — they cannot run simultaneously without killing output.
Creative Confidence, Made Practical - Oblique Strategies, Made Practical
Oblique Strategies is a deck of constraint-based prompts created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt to interrupt habitual thinking during creative blocks. The prompts work by forcing an indirect, unexpected approach to a problem rather than attacking it head-on. Evidence for constraint-based creativity is solid in cognitive research; the specific deck is widely used in music, design, and writing with strong anecdotal support. - Use round-robin turns to equalize contribution
Give everyone a timed, equal turn — it prevents a few voices from dominating and pulls quieter members into the space.
Osborn’s Brainstorming Rules, Made Practical - Invent options for mutual gain before selecting
Generate multiple creative options without commitment before evaluating any — the solution space is usually larger than the initial positions suggest.
Principled Negotiation, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Brainstorming Without Criticism
Separate generating ideas from evaluating them — criticism comes later, never during.
Defer judgment during ideation
- Separate Generation From Evaluation
Separate the generating phase from the evaluating phase — they cannot run simultaneously without killing output.
Defer all judgment during ideation
- Who Should Evaluate Ideas
Evaluation decisions drain Wonder and Tenacity geniuses — protect your evaluators and route decisions to them.
Route decisions to your Discernment genius
- Brainstorm Before Evaluate
Keep idea generation and idea selection in separate sittings — never mix the modes.
Separate divergence from convergence sessions
- Brainstorming Without Judgment
Separate generating ideas from evaluating them — criticism comes later, never during.
- Brainwriting Vs Brainstorming
Have everyone write ideas silently at the same time, then share — this is the group brainstorm that research actually supports.
Use brainwriting to defeat production blocking
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