Antony is an active and enthusiastic worker who is not afraid of voicing opinions and proposing his ideas during the team meeting. That day on a one-on-one meeting, Antony delivers a new idea to his manager. Despite believing that the idea is great, sadly the manager ends up refusing the proposal because he thinks there is something missing from every idea that Antony himself fails to acknowledge.
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The truth is, coming up with ideas is easy but demonstrating “the good” one can be quite challenging. There is a way, however, to improve the success of your ideas. Consider the following phase if you want your manager say YES to your ideas.
First and foremost method to know if your ideas are worth attention is by testing it. How? First, you can ask people around whether your ideas solve their problem or fulfil their needs. Pay attention to their opinion. If they give positive comments or encouragements, chances are, your idea is worth attention and is likely to succeed. Then, your second move should be identifying tools available to turn your ideas into reality. If the tools you need to start building your ideas can be easily found, you should start proposing it to your manager.
“It is my ideas, why do I have to do a self-reflection?”, you might ask.
Well, you own the idea but if you are not passionate enough to develop it, then your idea becomes pointless. In the workforce, when you propose an idea to the manager, he expects that you will do your best and achieve a better result if you are the one who runs the idea. Yet, if it is just a “cross-on-my-mind-idea” and you don’t feel emotionally connected to this idea, you better keep it to yourself or give it to someone else.
Your ideas might be noble and have a high probability of succeeding in the future. Yet, if you fail to explain and demonstrate it in a straightforward and simple way, it is the same as a “useless idea”. Therefore, try to explain your idea to a layman. For example, you can show it to your grandma or your highschool sister. If they understand and positively nod to all what you say, your idea will be worth it. If no, then you need to refine your idea.
Dave Fletcher said that, “If your idea is good, you have to test everything, question everything, and assume nothing.” So in this phase, you need to question everything. Think of the following questions and if you answer it well, congratulations, your idea is peerless.
Take-away note: You should learn and adapt as you go along the way because oftentimes when you start working on your project idea, the end goal is often different from your expectation.
Read also: Is Innovation All About Ideas? Revealing the Secret of Innovation
