How You Respond Sends a Powerful Message

You don’t just want ideas from your team. You want ideas you can use. And let’s be real—sometimes the ideas are so wacky, you might even be fighting back a sarcastic chuckle. Here’s a proven, human-centered “how to respond” technique that recognizes the effort while providing information to help them contribute more relevant ideas in the future.

How to Train Your Team to Bring You Better Ideas

In almost every Courageous Cultures leadership development program we do we get this question.

“Karin and David, I think these tools are great, but my problem isn’t that I don’t get ideas from my team. I get too many of them. And I’ve got to tell you, some of them are pretty wacky. There’s no way I can use them. How do I respond to them without shutting them down, or wasting a lot of time?”

If you haven’t already done this – download our I.D.E.A. Incubator Guide. It’s your free guide to a power-packed team innovation session that will mobilize courage and increase team engagement.

Respond with Gratitude, Information, and an Invitation

First, you get more of what you and encourage and celebrate and less of what you ignore. Even if this idea is half-baked or wacky, the next one might be a game-changer. How you respond matters.

Gratitude

Start with gratitude and thanking them for their contribution.

“Thanks so much for spending time thinking about this.”

Or, “I can tell you really care about this project, thank you for thinking about how to make it better.”

Or, simply. “Thank you!”

Information

Now if the idea is wacky, this next “how to respond” step is critical. Because you want the next ideas they bring you to be more on target.

One of the biggest reasons for bad ideas is that employees don’t have enough clarity or strategic context to offer a relevant idea (see also, 7 strategic questions your team should be able to answer).

If an idea is off base you can provide information about why.

For example:

“That idea would be really interesting if we were planning to expand our leadership training programs to include training llamas. But for now, we are focused on training humans on human-centered leadership.”

Or, “That idea would be really interesting if we had five million dollars. In this case, we’ve got five hundred.”

An Invitation

Knowing this information, I’d love to hear what ideas you have.

When you respond to ideas using gratitude, information, and an invitation, you teach critical thinking and problem solving, promote psychological safety and improve the chances of a better idea in the future.

Respond with Regard: a Tool You Can Use

You can download this tool for free here.

How Do I Respond to An Idea (Even if I Can’t Use It?)

#Asking For a Friend

You may also enjoy this feature (and interview with Karin Hurt) in CIO Magazine, 5 Myths of IT Culture Change (on pages 23-27).

Your turn.

What are your favorite “How to Respond” Techniques?

Want more tools and ideas like this to build a Courageous Culture? First, download your free copy of the Let’s Grow Leaders I.D.E.A. Incubator Guide. Then check out our Strategic Leadership and Team Innovation page for leadership development opportunities to help you build a Courageous Culture at your company.