Why does my team stop having ideas when I’m in the room?

Think, do, be. This is not management. It is leading for creativity in other people, which you can do with no authority at all, on a project you are not even on.

Good ideas need leading, because they die easily. The boss is in the room, so nobody says the risky one. Somebody is shouting down every idea but their own. Or the room is simply too far into busy brain, and every new thought is getting killed at birth.

In the absence of anyone leading for ideas, the possibility of new ideas is quietly lost, and nobody in the room will ever know it happened.

My friend Bernie is an executive coach. He watched me run sessions for a while before he said anything.

Then he told me I led every single one of them the same way.

He was right, and I had never noticed. I had one setting. Up at the front with the pen, seeing where it could go, pulling the room along behind me. It worked often enough that I had mistaken it for competence rather than for a preference.

And the model I built it on came from somewhere unexpected. At BBC Radio 1 we used a brand model about where a brand sits in relation to its audience. Out in front of them. Alongside them, arms around. Or behind them, as a backstop.

That is exactly the choice you make every time you walk into a room where ideas are meant to happen. Leading creativity is an audience relationship. You are picking a position relative to the people whose ideas you actually want.

Out in front. Being the idea leader. Follow me, I know where we are going, I have got the ball, I can see and feel the potential here, so come with me. And people do.

Alongside. Being the idea mate. Arms around other people’s creativity. Creative equals. We are in this together, keep going, I am right beside you, supporting and encouraging and wanting to know more, every step of the way.

Behind. Being the idea backstop. Letting others step up. Letting ideas go where they will. Letting other people take their creativity somewhere new, with you behind all of them. Still engaged, still watching, holding the backstop position in case you are needed.

Here is how to find yours. If you were leading an ideas session tomorrow, at your most comfortable, would you be up at the flip chart boldly leading where the ideas go, sitting with others discussing and exploring, or hanging over the back listening and watching where the conversation is heading?

First one, you are a natural out in front. Second, alongside. Third, behind.

None of them is the good one. The whole thing is range.

And I will say the obvious part out loud. There is a page on this site about a session I derailed by standing up and presenting a finished concept at point two of eight. That was not a one-off. That was my home base, running with no awareness that it was even a choice.

Name your home base. Use the flip chart question above. Be honest, not aspirational. Most people know within two seconds and then talk themselves out of it.

One specific thing, because it works and almost nobody does it. If one person is dominating the airtime, go and sit beside them. It will shut them right up, without a word being said about it.