New Ideas and Motivation

A successful team has a good manager who is helping them be successful. Also, a successful manager has a good team that is helping him/her be successful. Regardless of which role you are playing in this success, you are helping generate new ideas and out of the box thinking. You participate in innovation and improvement – be it products or processes.

It’s important for a manager to understand that handling new ideas effectively is a multi-step approach. The core of such discussion must be, not to prove your abilities or others’ inabilities, but to generate new ideas and encourage constructive participation. It is not uncommon for team members to compete with each other. However, this is not a forum for competition, but a forum to generate new ideas. To that end, I submit the following for your consideration.

Required Personality Traits are:

1. Listening – patiently and attentively to the complete idea presented, without interruption or dismissing
2. Constructive and Positive Attitude – to analyze the idea from a positive and how to make it work perspective

What to do during the discussion/presentation?

1. Listen carefully and patiently to the idea presented
2. Identify and highlight the positive aspects (why it is a good idea and will work)
3. Only identify, not highlight or verbalize, the issues that may hinder the successful working of the idea
4. Frame and ask questions around the issues identified in step 3 (Have you thought about this issue or that need?
5. Encourage the presenter and/or the group to find solutions to the issues that may have tempted you to dismiss the idea at the beginning

At the end, you may or may not have a working solution, but what you definitely have is a positively charged team that is willing to come up with more new ideas.

1. Presenter – My ideas were heard, discussed and (a) were accepted, or (b) were not accepted because… Next time, I will have better solutions and fewer issues
2. You – I heard some good ideas today and my problem is solved, or encouraged my team to come up with more such ideas that will eventually provide a solution

What is not taken away from this discussion is

1. Presenter – My manager does not listen to my ideas. There is no point in presenting any more ideas, only to be shutdown immediately and then feel humiliated
2. You – My team is a worthless bunch of people that cannot come up with a single good idea to resolve my problems. I am still where I started with no end in sight. I look bad in front of my superiors for no fault of mine. My team is to blame.