There were buttons to turn on the overhead lights, but when I pushed them, nothing happened. I turned on my phone flashlight and felt around for hidden buttons. Finally, I gave up, called the flight attendant and asked how to turn on the lights. She pushed the buttons above my seat for a while and then announced that apparently this plane had no overhead lights. Instead, we were to use the TV monitor for light. She had to be kidding right? I was skeptical, but then asked how to make the screen bright enough to see (maybe this was some sort of new energy saver). She pushed a couple of buttons which made the screen go from very dim to dim, absolutely not bright enough to work or read.
She left, I pondered how a plane could not have overhead lights (the man two rows up kept punching the same buttons) and finally I turned my flashlight back on and went to work.
Twenty minutes or so later the same flight attendant came over, said she’d talked to her colleagues and they discovered the plane’s overhead lights had not been switched on. This time she pushed the same button and my seating area lit up.
Here’s the thing. For a few seconds I actually started thinking maybe this was the strangest plane I’d ever been on and it really didn’t have overhead lights. Then I thought about how many people ultimately buy into fabrications and altered facts when they attend meetings and hear things that might sound preposterous. But if the information comes from a boss or someone in authority, people either believe what is said or at the very least acquiesce to what the person with more authority thinks is best.
That’s why I like Adam Grant’s comment in his latest book, Hidden Potential, on no more brainstorming. He explains that brainstorming often doesn’t work because the loudest or most-in-charge people get approval for their ideas. Go to brainwriting. Everyone writes their ideas anonymously. Then all pool their ideas in once place, all ideas are read and discussed and approved based on merit instead of pressure-based agreement.
If a rational, relatively intelligent person can actually start to wonder if a plane is not equipped with overhead lights, then it would seem others could equally be caught up in accepting ideas without questioning their veracity or worth. Brainwriting seems a smart way to let everyone’s ideas have equal consideration, and collaboration is obviously a smarter way to lead to greater collective creativity and solutions.
