Beware the First Right Answer: Navigating False Positive Ideas

Why your initial brilliant idea might be holding you back

I’m always skeptical of first right answers. It’s rare for the first idea that comes to mind to be the best solution to your problem.

A few months back I was working on a product enhancement that would add structure to our internal notes functionality (we’re building a conversational applicant tracking system and usually people like to include notes on candidates).

I jumped at the first idea to solve the problem, built out the requirements, and got the designs mocked up. Within a week the product was ready to be built and shipped. Then I got feedback… It wasn’t the best way we could tackle or solve the problem. We had functionality already built for another use case that allowed users to complete a form. Adapting that functionality to serve as a note would allow us to avoid more time developing the feature, reduce the complexity of configuration, and build around current user behaviors.

I had fallen into the trap of false positive ideas by taking the first right answer as if it was the best answer.

Creative people regularly receive false positive ideas. You’ll have an idea that you believe is good, but really it’s mediocre. Anchoring bias causes you to put too much emphasis on one idea when making a decision. Single piece of information gets all the weight and we ignore all the others.¹

When you peel back the layers of a false positive idea you’ll find there’s a seed that exists for a better idea to pivot to.

False positives fuel creative pivots

Chances are you’ve probably seen the movie Up. The movie tells the story of a widower and a boy scout flying to South America in a house carried by balloons. Up was the highest grossing film in 2009 earning $751M world wide and has grown into a cultural icon.

Pete Docter, the director, later revealed the team's original plan for the story to be very different.²

In an interview Docter said, “The original story for Up was very abstract. It was a floating city of characters that looked vaguely like muppets, and two brothers that were the heirs to the throne always getting in fights over it. They fall off, and the city floats away. Then they're exposed to all these creatures on the ground – a tall, lanky bird with a spear. All very bizarre.”

Once the writers really dug into the idea they realized the underlying theme was aimed at escapism. Docter admitted the story wasn’t the problem. The characters were the issue.

Disney and Pixar recognized the false positive idea. They pivoted the characters away from princes that had everything to an old man that lost everything. The script was revamped to emphasize someone who felt the need to escape.

Who knows how the original movie would have turned out. It’s certain that the second right answer was a success though.

False positives have their purpose: plant the seed for a bright idea to grow.

4 ways to navigate false positive ideas

With a little extra thought and validation you can easily overcome false positives ideas. Let’s be honest, no idea ever feels perfect. The ability to explore imperfect ideas, recognize when they’re a false positive, and course correct is what’s important.

1. Have a negative capability

All ideas go through a process of “natural selection”.

The worst ideas are just immediately screened out. As you diverge in your creative process bad ideas come in. Through convergence those ideas collide with good ones serving some purpose.

This process explains how to recognize big ideas.

The 19th century poet, John Keats called this negative capacity. He deemed it a critical part of the creative process.³