Personally I like deBono and the 6 hats – give a bit of time for a black hat and then its off limits.

The devil’s advocate ‘knows’ the truth already — they get power in the act of fitting things into what’s already known — because underneath they are truly frightened of what is unknown, untried, unthought, and untested.

Wildness is uncomfortable and unleashes the impossible — at the same time.

Perhaps a balance is sometimes needed — but as soon as you ‘balance’ the wildness it is lost…forever.

It wasn’t the bargain price of a dollar, but the priceless lesson of the conversion of anger and frustration into imagination and self-defined success that compelled me.

And how does this apply to business innovation? Wild new ideas do often trigger anger and frustration among members of an organization – both at inception and sometimes even more so if you get into execution phase(s). The devil’s advocate is the manifestation of this anger and frustration. Here’s my advice: don’t turn this him away, adopt him. You’re welcome to assume that ALL of the worst-case scenario won’t happen(I rarely hear of shark attacks during a tornado), but within his criticisms lies very real barriers to your subsequent success.

But most of all – don’t let the naysayer stop you – take in what he says (probe him for more!) and see if you can’t actually bring your fledgling idea to that much better a place as you genuinely consider and address weaknesses.

There are still individuals as Kelley describes who act to shut down ideas, but as described, their actions are much more unilateral and much more detached. They tend to be more often motivated more by an interest in asserting their subjective position and beliefs than in engaging actual issues. And they may very well claim “devil’s advocacy” when the rest of the room is for an idea, just because it appears to give them objective cover, and they expect the idea to die before they need to switch sides and defend it.

There is very much a place for a devil’s advocate in well-structured healthy innovation. In my experience as a multiply recognized leading innovator in my company, and active self-identifying devil’s advocate, I’d be more inclined to blame the culture when an idea fails. The devil’s advocate is only capable of single-handedly killing an idea when the established culture shuns adversity or risk; i.e. when an attack on one part of an idea is met with acceptance rather than solutions, when nobody wishes to defend an idea once it becomes “tainted” with uncertainty, or when ideas are so “owned” by individuals that they cannot be objectively criticized.