Entertain Those Crazy Ideas

What do you do with your crazy ideas?

When things are going their best I find that I let my crazy ideas in for a visit. I let them rise to the occasion. Instead of dismissing them as crazy (and some truly are and when they are can go harmlessly away) I entertain them. Give them tea and biscuits. Find a way to let them stay.

Crazy ideas like:

what if I could solve that silly problem by sharing it with my biggest competition?
what if that collage became a picture to inspire my logo?
what if my closest friend was actually standing in my way?
what if my greatest fear was my biggest opportunity?

What crazy ideas occur to you on a recurring basis? Could they be worth some more attention?

A useful idea may sound crazy at first.

Give it some room to breathe. Give it some space to grow. Entertain those crazy ideas for long enough to know if they really are crazy - or perhaps just plain creative enough to make a positive difference.

What's your crazy idea of the day?

-- Doug Smith

Front Range Leadership: Training Supervisors for Success

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Comments

How's Your Reputation

How important do you think it is to sustain a positive leadership reputation? It matters to your team. It matters to any future team that you might be leading. Your reputation tells a story about how you operate, how you facilitate and how you achieve your results. Leading positive change builds credibility. Making a difference right now builds credibility. Keeping your promises and showing care for others establishes the kind of character that people want to work with and maybe even follow. What positive change are you currently working on? -- doug smith

Where to Start?

It's harder to solve a problem alone when you are at the center of the problem. Get another perspective. Stay open to your own part of the problem. Sometimes, deep into the search, we discover that we could be the cause. Start with reflection. It could provide direction. -- doug smith

Creatively Human

In a world where anything can be duplicated, create what cannot be duplicated. -- doug smith

Extremes

Do you know what it is like to work for an unreasonable boss? When no matter what you do is ever good enough it can become demotivating, even crippling. We do need to challenge our teams, but not to esteem crushing extremes. Unreasonable expectations cause disappointment. High performance? Yes. Perfect performance? Not attainable. -- doug smith

Dig deeper

Obvious solutions are great, except that they seldom work. The chances are that the solution that first occurs to you has already been tried. Sticky, mysterious, subtle problems evade the obvious. They hide. They mask. They simmer. Mysterious problems seldom surrender to obvious solutions. Dig deeper. -- doug smith

More signal than noise

Criticism produces more noise than signal. The recipient will hear mostly noise. Find another way to share the relevant information and it will sound more like advice than insult. Here's one other way -- ask the person you want to give advice to what their advice is for improving performance. Listen. Find the tone. Catch the brilliance. Support the useful observations. When we coach positively with enthusiasm our advice lives longer. What do you think? -- doug smith

Share the Load

Are you in charge? Is the team your responsibility? Every team needs more than one leader. The highest leverage strategy a leader can employ is to develop more leaders. Build that mighty team one person at a time. Share the load. -- doug smith

No Victims

There will be offers, heading your way in obvious as well as subtle channels. Strong looking barriers. Refusals to see you. Efforts to take advantage of you. That's not meant for you, no matter how strong someone else's intentions imply that it is. Decline any opportunity to be a victim. It does not suit you. -- doug smith

Positive Value

If it does not support you, allow it to strengthen you. -- doug smith

Clear Improvement

The best we can do is not yet the best we can do. Improvement is part of everyone's job and leaders must make that abundantly clear. -- doug smith

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