Alan's musings ... some personal views and rants

on this digital marketing malarkey

What is CREATIVE NEGATIVITY in a business context?

Over the years I have always been a strong proponent of the old saying that 'a chain is only as strong as its weakest link'. I used this extensively when I was in retail management and carried it into my teaching.

Some folk I have worked with have seen this as me being negative ... 'oh, Alan, you're always looking for something to go wrong'. Others - thankfully, those who paid my wages - have used me as a kind of sounding board for new ideas, particularly at a strategic level.

More recently, I have morphed this into what I called; 'weak link analysis', where organizations give me a proposed digital strategy and I try to find fault with it.

One of the organizations I work with is a global brand that is, how shall I put this ... fond of its jargon and buzz words. And they decided that I didn't do weak link analysis [sounds a bit old fashioned] I perform creative negativity - which sounds far more trendy.

Creative negativity is, apparently, where I highlight an aspect - or aspects - of their plan that may cause the strategy to fail or not function as well as they hoped.

This, effectively, presents them with a problem that requires someone to be creative to fix.

Hence; creative negativity. Who'd have thought?

A quick check for the term on Google brings up an author who used it to describe covert revolutionaries in four female practitioners - in the early Modern and Victorian periods - of a strategy she calls creative negativity. Hmmm, that doesn't sound like me.

However, I'm a fan of not only phrases my mum used in my youth [e.g. 'a chain ... '] but Chinese proverbs that serve the same purpose - and that Google search also unearthed:

'A stone is not polished without friction, nor a person perfected without adversity'

Hmmm, closer than 'covert revolutionaries', but still no cigar. Give me a while and I'll see if I can come up with a one-sentence definition for creative negativity in a business context :-)

How to cite this page:

Charlesworth, A. (2018). What is reative negativity in a business context. Retrieved [insert date] from AlanCharlesworth.com: https://www.alancharlesworth.com/Alans-musings/creative-negativity