This is where what I call a deviant comes in. Every team needs a deviant, someone who can help the team by challenging the tendency to want too much homogeneity, which can stifle creativity and learning. Deviants are the ones who stand back and say, ‘Well, wait a minute, why are we even doing this at all? What if we looked at the thing backwards or turned it inside out?’ That’s when people say, ‘Oh, no, no, no, that’s ridiculous,’ and so the discussion about what’s ridiculous comes up. Unlike the CFO I mentioned before, who derailed the team by shutting down discussions, the deviant opens up more ideas, and that gets you a lot more originality. In our research, we’ve looked carefully at both teams that produced something original and those that were merely average, where nothing really sparkled. It turned out that the teams with deviants outperformed teams without them. In many cases, deviant thinking is a source of great innovation."According to Hackman, a deviant may help a group consider _______, but if the deviant has a strong personality and limits the input of others, the problem of ________ , may arise.
