At a staff meeting, I very enthusiastically shared my great idea to improve productivity. It was such a great idea! I divvied up responsibilities to implement this great idea and left the meeting thinking how brilliant I was. I had recently been promoted to a director level position and I was eager to show what I could do.

Now, there are lots of ways to improve productivity. I had ideas, sure. But I failed to realize that my managers and their team members might have some input too. Nope. I charged ahead with my “great” idea. I didn’t pause to ask for feedback because I was so sure it was such a great idea.

A few days later, after investigating how to implement my great idea, one of my managers came into my office, shut the door and started questioning me about my great idea. I found this irritating. She was questioning me about my obviously great idea! 

 Maybe my idea wasn’t so great.

She kept asking what outcome I expected and how that outcome could be achieved if we implemented my great idea. At that point, I paused and looked at her. It finally struck me that my great idea might be a bad idea. I

realized to really manage a successful team, I had to be willing to hear from my employees that what I thought was a brilliantly great idea – might not be so brilliant. That’s tough especially if I’m really attached to the idea and really do believe it is brilliant.

This manager then went on to propose another way to improve productivity and how it could be implemented and tracked. Her proposal was a better proposal than mine. I had a choice: refuse her proposal and continue with my great idea or go with her proposal. If I continued with my great idea, that I now knew had some serious downsides, this would signal to her and the entire organization that I was unwilling to consider other people’s ideas. This action could result in closing down creativity and innovation. Or, I could swallow my pride and choose a better idea than mine.

I told her I would think about her proposal and get back to her. I thought through the two proposals long and hard; clearly her proposal was a better one than mine. I decided to go with her proposal. What I didn’t realize at the time was my decision not only gave folks the freedom to propose new ideas but it also told them I trusted them.

Since that time, I’ve proposed new things and my team members have proposed new things. By making it a reciprocal conversation with lots of back and forth, I get buy-in and signal to the team that I respect and trust their input. I’m not saying I don’t at times decline their proposals. I do. But only after listening and weighing the pros and cons of each proposal. In this way, the door to creativity and innovation is left wide open.