But Do You Really Want To?

You know the rule—Don’t pass judgement on any idea until you’ve captured them all. But what about those obviously half-cocked ideas? You know a bad idea when you see one, right? You’ve been around the block once or twice.

The problem with bad ideas is they can spawn great ideas.

Never let yourself forget this, whether it happens to be yours or someone else’s. You don’t want to give up on them too soon.

What if that bone-headed fantasy is met with a, “yes, and we could…” or “that’s a good start, then what if…?

C’mon… We’re Experts After All.

The problem with experts? We’re hard wired to leap to the answer, jump to a conclusion, or shortcut a process because we think we already know what’s best. Just count the years of experience in the room!

We skip the important parts. Worse yet, we leave the process in the notebook we were given at the workshop. That’s what makes it so easy to miss great ideas and prevent them from ever happening.

Did you recognize the opening question as the first rule of brainstorming? That’s where you have an open forum and you capture every idea without prejudice or judgment. When did that ever happen?

Oh, brainstorming is out, and collaboration is in…

Same thing. Different name.

The unfortunate reality… it’s far too easy to skip ahead and miss out on making something so much better. How many of the following ten ways to kill a great idea have you seen in action?

1. Disregarding input from the rookie.  He doesn’t know anything yet. How can he come up with a good idea? Why not? He hasn’t learned the biases of the group’s thinking.
2. Worshiping the guru. “That’s Sarah’s area… Sarah, what’s the best approach here?”
3. Should we ask the customer? “No, they would have told us by now. Besides, they hired us because we’re the experts.”
4. Ignoring the simple solution. “Okay, that’s nice, what else can we add? It’s got to have WOW-factor!”
5. Failure to invite others to help. Outsiders can simply see things in ways those of us close to a project can’t, whether we’re willing to admit it or not.
6. Buying into company cultural ego. “We could ask our suppliers, but we’ll tell them how we want things. Besides, they’re too small anyway.”
7. Trying to solve problems remotely. Get up and go visit the trenches. Meet the users and ask them questions. Hold the product in your hands, take it for a spin. Practice the lost art of looking, touching, feeling, and whatever other -ing might help establish reality.
8. Marveling in your accomplishments. “Overconfidence leads to oversight.” It’s that simple.
9. Letting the quiet ones remain quiet. At my last company we followed a strict process in meetings of going around the table giving everyone an opportunity to speak before moving on to the next agenda item.
10. And my favorite… seen on a coffee mug, “John, that’s such a dumb idea I’m afraid we’re going to have to shoot you.” 

Have you shot down any great ideas lately? Could any have led to the next big thing?

Do you need help fine tuning your idea machine? Let’s talk.

Copyright © 2019 Jeff Meister – All Rights Reserved