Float your idea to success

Posted: August 6, 2014 | Categories: Leadership, Self-Improvement, Team Building

Have you ever come up with a great idea to solve a problem only to have it shot down right away?  If this happens to us enough, we could become discouraged and hesitate to share a future idea.  Good teams respect the principle of “idea fluency”.  Everyone should feel comfortable and confident in sharing their ideas.

If we have a good idea that we believe will solve an important problem, we need to prepare ourselves to sell our idea.  That requires that we work through these four basic problem solving questions that have been time tested for over 100 years

1.  What is the problem? State it simply and without blame. “The problem is that we did not meet our second quarter sales goals.”

2.  What are the causes of the problem?  What were the conditions and circumstances that caused the problem to happen? What was done?  What wasn’t done? (This should be stated without blame)

3.  What are the possible solutions?  Here we are ready to talk about some solutions we have. We can list two or three.

4.  What is the best possible solution? Of all these I have mentioned, here is what I recommend. What do you think?

Thinking through these questions puts us in a position for a quality discussion that can lead to good collaboration.  The team or person you are talking to might like some of your idea, but not all of it.  Be flexible.  Ask, what would you add or modify.  You may be surprised at what they come up with it.

What do most people do when trying to sell their idea?  They jump right in to step #4.  When we do this, we greatly increase the chance of our idea getting shot down.   I remember the time I was appointed to a committee that was responsible for a training program.  I was the only one in the group who was a professional trainer.  They were facing a challenge, and I thought of the solution right away.  I was tempted to speak.  Instead, I affirmed the problem.  “So the challenge is we need to….  What are your thoughts?”  In a short time, the team came up with the exact solution that I would have recommended.  I was sure glad I didn’t jump in with the solution.  Ownership is a powerful force multiplier.

If we want to increase our influence, we need to be prepared.  Use the 4 problem-solving questions.  They will work for you.

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