“I have a great a idea,” Laura says to you. She speeds through her thoughts clearly excited. ”What do you think?”
“Cool,” you respond. “You know, you should try…”
And in those six words, you might’ve killed the idea. And you might even be suggesting the greatest addendum ever to Laura’s idea. The problem is that when we add on to someone else’s idea, we often take away ownership. The great idea no longer is her idea, it is more of our idea.
Now you don’t always kill commitment when you do this, but I’m sure it happens far more often than we are even aware of. I know I do this all the time. I mean, I’m being helpful aren’t it? In actuality, I probably would be more helpful with just a smile and nod. Maybe a thumbs up. It is hard, but sometimes we need to stop from being too helpful.
This post was inspired by Marshall Goldsmith’s talk at Google around the 9 minute mark.
By adding to someone else’s idea, we might add 5% or 10% of value to that idea but we may very well kill that person’s commitment to it. We transform the idea from his/her’s or well our’s.
