What do you do when someone tosses out a terrible idea in a meeting? How you handle that moment is critical in determining the vibe and productivity for the rest of the meeting. In this week’s episode, you’ll learn a four-part strategy for re-directing bad ideas and keeping your meeting on the rails.
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Why Your Team Needs You To Be Precise
If you want your team to do bold, creative work, you must take the first risk by giving them clear, precise direction. Here are a few ways to do so.
thanks…unfortunately this happens often, and I may have been a culprit trying to look smart. Thanks for the great tips
Todd – This is a fantastic quick list of how to capture thoughts that may add value to a different project while re-directing the participants back into the main mission of the session.
I’ve had the great opportunity to be a part of a group that handled this particular topic in an efficient non-threatening way. While at Baptist Hospital back in the early 90’s I was the first co-captain of a team we ended up calling Bridges. The primary mission was to change the culture of the hospital. It started at the highest level with Quint Studer. He inspired, grew, and supported change at every level. It still exists and is thriving today. Inputs and actionable steps came from down – up and everything in between or joined to the core (CEO to janitor to patient).
To address this particular topic and yet not shut down members we started brainstorm meetings with 2 white boards. One was the core directive (problem) written out with 3 – 4 objectives to begin to solve a problem. The second board was labeled “The Parking Lot.” The “Parking Lot” board was the repository of what many would consider “bad ideas” or not relevant to the primary objective.
A step we added that could add to your audio cast was to outwardly state at the beginning of these sessions a 5 – 7 minute overview of the primary objective (the actual problem), a status summary of where we (as a core team) were at in solving this objective, AND that all thoughts would be captured but may not be relevant. If the team lead verbalized this summary and stated “we want to hear from everyone and hope that each of you has at least one idea that ends up in the “Parking Lot” we had a synergy not seen in other settings.
By stating this (fact) outwardly and actually capturing the thought (idea) we had more creative inputs, less alienated members and everyone participated more freely. It became “ok” and almost a sub-conscious thought or requirement to have a “bad idea”.
As you stated, the key in was having a lead or member NOT shut down the idea but efficiently and successfully move and scribe that thought into something else. In this capture, we moved and scribed them into he “Parking Lot.” We then scribed and added the “Parking Lot” to a board we called “The Bright Idea Board.” This board was advertised internally to the entire work-force. It had the member’s name next to the idea. A sheer unexpected but beautiful benefit of this process was it catapulted and inspired other actionable steps and ideas from any member or customer who wanted to be a part of the culture change. People begin to own the change by helping to create and support the change because they helped “birth” the change.
While I DON’T believe the statement “there is no such thing as a “bad question” or bad idea”;” I do believe that the question, message, or idea maybe in the wrong bucket, framework, or time sequence for the current matter. Sometimes, we all are simply not ready to “hear the message.” but at some point it can become the exact message we need to hear.
The key human element to handling “bad ideas” is having the lead and group acknowledge, reflect, and process it smoothly like a river running through rocks while it seeks the ocean. As always, thanks for your great audios! ~ dee