One thing that I have noticed is that it is most important how you accept feedback / ideas, and less of what the outcome is. If you get buy-in and the people suggesting ideas feel that they are on the same side, rather than an "us vs them", everyone will be happy and addressing the ideas will progress in a collaborative way.
If you bring up an idea and someone says "wow, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard", that gets your back up even if it's true. This also means the idea dies before it can really be explored which doesn't help anyone.
A co-worker of mine takes the opposite route. If I brought up an idea like "let's put salt in our eyes to make it rain!" I can picture him saying "That's an interesting idea. I had not looked at the problem from that angle before", and then you work through the pro's and con's together. With that first sentence he gets buy-in and instantly you are on the same team and are addressing the problem together.
The outcome might be the same for both, but one divides teams, the other builds them.
I often use this approach when somebody recommends something that I know is a bad idea. I pretend like it's a good idea, and then we work through the logic, and pros and cons, and I get them to realize for themselves why it's a bad idea. They take it much easier that way then if you immediately go after them explaining why their idea is so bad. Although sometimes they fail to see the errors in their logic, and then you have to point it out for them to see. However there are times when somebody recommends something that is so very very wrong, that you just have to say something right away.
ReplyDelete"However there are times when somebody recommends something that is so very very wrong, that you just have to say something right away."
ReplyDeleteYou don't think that "let's put salt in our eyes to make it rain!" is very wrong? Man, your eyes must burn sometimes!! ;-P
What I was trying to say in my post is *no matter* how wrong the suggestion is, you still have to deal with it as legitimate, well thought out, valuable suggestion. Every time.