Sharing Before You Feel Ready

One of the quirks of the creative process is that it's accelerated by "premature sharing."

We often see this in design workshops, especially among working professionals. We come to a "share out," where we are going to review folks' work, and ask for a show of hands: "Who feels ready to share with the group?" Almost always, not a single hand in the house gets raised.

Why? Because perfectionism is so deeply ingrained in our value system: we want our work to be perfect before unveiling it to the world.

And just as frequently, after the share out (which always involves some type of critique and feedback), I'll ask, "Who feels like their work was enhanced by the feedback given here?"

This time, almost everyone raises their hand.

So no one was ready to share, and then everyone was helped by sharing. What gives?

In much of our work, we have been conditioned to make it perfect before sharing it; but with creative, exploratory work, we know the opposite is true: share it in order to make it more perfect. Again, I hate to do this, but I'm going to reference the fantastic "A Technique for Producing Ideas" on this point, as I'm delighted to find that Young echoes a similar sentiment almost 100 years ago:

"Do not make the mistake of holding your idea close to your chest at this stage. Submit it to the criticism of the judicious.

"When you do, a surprising thing will happen. You will find that a good idea has, as it were, self-expanding qualities. It stimulates those who see it and add to it. Thus possibilities in it which you have overlooked will come to light."

We see that happen all the time at the d.school. As Reid Hoffman has famously said, "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."

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