Video Transcript
These have been generated by robots and may not be 100% accurate.
SE 3 (Idea)
Have you ever offered an idea work that got shot down pummeled or simply ignored verbally or nonverbally the consensus was. That’s a bad idea. Did it hurt your feelings because you did not want to share any more ideas. Did you feel resentful towards others on your team. I cannot. Can I tell you a secret. You have more bad ideas than good but you’re not alone. Welcome to another episode of shaping environments where we stretch an idea discovering new dimensions that expands our capacity like you have been in hundreds to thousands of meetings over the course of my career in different cities with different teams of different ages. Yet I have experienced a consistent sensation if you will be extremely vocal. A few will offer some input and a few will remain absolutely silent. It’s often attributed to personalities topic relevance or lack of time. Some will say processor I need to consider these things longer. Others will say I’m clearly knowledgeable about this matter so I’ll pass and so me will simply let the clock run out. Letting others have the floor. However the reality is if you are in the room on the team you have something significant to offer. I find the underlying reasons for a lack of contribution contribution to be much more emotional thoughts and feelings like it’s not safe for me to be candid. For no one really cares what I think or I don’t want to be labeled or retaliated against. What are the classic. We just do what the boss wins anyhow. So why does it matter. Finally I’ve tried before and had my feelings hurt. Many of those reasons reflect the level of trust within the team how thick or thin trust is dictates our willingness to express our ideas but I don’t want to talk about trust on this episode. We’ll save that for a later day. Today I want to talk about our connection to our ideas. Or as I call it our idea. I think the entity attachment immature individuals attach their identity to their ideas. Let me say that again immature individuals attach their identity to their ideas scary. That means we think our ideas represent us. So when I say Hey team here’s my thoughts about this thing we’re working on how my colleagues treat that idea. I internalize to think that’s how they treat or think about me. Man I’ve seen that a lot. An idea gets beat up and an individual who offers it vows to never say anything again because it hurts. It hurts the ego. It hurts our feelings. It feels embarrassing. It seems like how you think about my idea is how you think about me. It’s super unfortunate. Many professionals live in that space. Mature professionals however take a different stance. I am not my ideas. Really. If you want you can say it out loud with me. I am not my ideas. When we arrive at that reality our value increases exponentially and it’s not hard to do. Let me give you three thoughts that will reconfigure your thinking about this. First we tend to think we have good ideas wrong we have more bad and mediocre ideas than good because we spend so much time with them though we convince ourselves that really good. And once we appreciate there’s a better chance or ideas not awesome to less risky it feels for us to share. Second our ideas will generate other ideas. We think a fully formed solution is the only way it can be offered. When we recognize our ideas simply part of the process a catalyst we’re able to present it as a rough draft. My nature. A rough draft is in the formulating stage it’s meant to be edited and enhanced. Third excellence is the goal. Takes a smidge of humility but the easiest way to detach our feelings from our ideas is to be mindful that we can only achieve excellence through collaboration and protein. The process to get there includes pain so when it stings a little remembered it’s not personal. It’s excellence. For us to get there we can’t love our ideas like we love ourselves. We certainly can’t have our identity attached to those ideas. So a couple tips for practicing this with your team . Acknowledge the likelihood that your idea might not be good. Saying something like this might not be a great idea but hope it will prompt something in one of you. Just that little phrase makes it inviting and comfortable for others to build upon and share towards it. Another tip is simply ask someone directly to contribute. Deb what do you think could make this thought of mine better. And then don’t let him off with them. I don’t know. Sounds great to me. Press for a perspective. I know the thicker the trust the more likely you’ll share in this manner however of trust is thin. You can still model this approach with limited risk when you embrace these three reconfiguring thoughts and verbalize what you’re attempting. You are not your ideas detaching that correlation. Change is dynamic tremendously. You’ll start offering ideas you think are bad if you realize bad ideas lead the decent ideas which lead to good ideas. Which takes us to a few potentially great ideas. And that’s always the goal. Imagine creating a competition for bad ideas without the expectation of offering great ideas right off the bat. Everyone is much more free to contribute. What idea have you been sitting on that you haven’t shared yet. Because it’s not fully formed. Release it into the wild this week. Who on your team needs to hear about this concept of idea identity attachment. Share this video with them. And don’t forget you’ve got lots of bad ideas. They’re only a rough draft and getting to excellence is painful. My name is Greg hawks. We shape environments where everyone gets to contribute their best daily. Thanks for letting us serve you.