In order to be creative, you need to want to be wrong.
Everything in our society is laying a fundament under being right. Being wrong is shamed and blamed, whereas being right is applauded.
Think about this for a second.
Everything that was ever invented, wasn’t precedented, thus risky, and thus a bad idea in the context that it was more likely to fail than to succeed. How could the plane, boiled water, toilet paper or iPhone be ever invented without someone sticking their heads above the field, saying “hey, I made this, let’s see if it’s a good idea”?
So again, for creativity, the root of invention and innovation, we need risk, courage and a willingness to be wrong. We need these skills (they are, because they can be taught) in our societies really badly.
Let’s applaud the right things and rethink our responses to people who risked being wrong and in the end were.