A POTENTIAL IDEAS GENERATION KILLER (WATCH OUT!)

While observing teams or groups of people working together to generate ideas I have, on occasions, witnessed the following. Watching an individual, sometimes you can sense that an idea is corning to them: you can see the concentration in their face and detect their expectancy as they are about to give birth to a thought. They begin to speak – but then the words don’t come out. They close their mouth again. Their eyes may narrow. What is going on here? Very likely this question has loomed in the mind of our  now silent individual: ‘if I say it, will someday steal my idea? ‘If this could be a problem, this impediment to generating ideas with others needs to be brought out and dealt with before you start.

Frankly, if you came to me and complained that somebody else had ‘stolen’ your idea having heard it, I would offer you two possibilities to ponder. Perhaps the circumstances are such that you should be pleased you have been able to help this person who has stolen your ideas. This was my reaction to an individual who complained that he had been generating ideas with a friend  who, like him, was looking for an idea for a business he could start. The idea had worked and had taken this person off the dole after a six – month spell of unemployment following redundancy.

Second, I said to the ‘victim’: ‘Now go away and, using your increased ability to generate ideas, having learnt and practiced the techniques, generate a better idea than the one that you have forfeited. In this way you will turn what you regard as a negative outcome into a positive one. You will be glad that you didn’t stay with that old idea once you have a better one!’     

Source: How To Generate Great Ideas by Barrie Hawkins