The Phrase Most Likely to Hold Your Company Back

April 2, 2020

It’s a funny thing about ideas: Almost everybody has them; and almost nobody wants to hear them.

Even simple, common-sense ideas are met with automatic resistance: “Can we move this desk over three inches, so that people don’t keep running into it?”

I can almost guarantee that the first response out of a supervisor’s mouth will be, “We can’t, because…” It’s like it’s programmed into people.

With a more in-depth suggestion, an innovator may have a better chance of climbing Mt. Everest solo than getting somebody to consider it.

So let’s change that. Instead of responding with, “We can’t, because…” try to reprogram yourself and your staff to think that not ALL new ideas are disruptive. To encourage open-mindedness and receptivity, change your automatic response from “We can’t” to “What about…?” This indicates that you are aware of snags, but that you’re willing to be convinced.

“What about how heavy it is? How will we move it?”

“We could take everything out and ask a couple of people to help with the moving.”

“Let me think about that. Oh, and what about…?”

For your company’s sake, train yourself to consider new ideas, not automatically reject them.