Killing bad ideas is relevant to companies any size. And to your career too.
It happened when I was a junior engineer. I was the first hire of a small team within a large corporation tasked to provide a mix of logistical and engineering solutions to a potential compliance issue for the business in many countries in South America. Because of the technical skill set, a peer thought I was qualified to take on a project that involved adjustment of parts within IT systems. Little by little, I learned that the project had an empty scope: we wouldn’t be able to create the change they were proposing for a variety of reasons.
Learn to kill bad ideas in elegance, and while you do that, deflect focus for something the organization should be working on.
Flag #1: scope creep
That in itself is a flag big enough for you to start the “kill this idea plan”. But situations in life offer more learning opportunities than a single digit.
Over the following weeks, as I collected evidence for the scope creep, I started to receive pieces of communication showing that the peer that matched me with this project had already communicated to upper management that a solution was coming along the way. Those messages also clearly stated that I was the responsible for the project.
This is where the bulk of the learning came from. This is where the appreciation of elegance in change management was instilled in my otherwise pure engineering soul.
Flag #2: they are not necessarily looking for the bad idea to come to life. They are actually framing you
Bad ideas are not always the by-product of a few stranded souls that spent too much time whiteboarding without supervision.
Sometimes, they have identified a true problem, and are looking for a solution.
Sometimes, they don’t know how to solve for it.
So they find the perfect prey. An intern. A junior employee. Someone from a department that they dislike. A junior person from a group they usually fingerpoint to. That was me in the situation.
Flag #3: they frame you to the higher ups, with an audience
As much as I was reading the situation and considering if I wasn’t reading too much into it… I noticed I was being invited to meetings and forums in which otherwise I wouldn’t be invited, or even wanted.
So if you are now counting flags like I did, you have three. And three is a magical number: prime, odd, fits one hand when counting with fingers, and one that even less intelligent animals can count.
I might have been a junior employee, but I didn’t fail to put it altogether.
So how do I kill a bad idea in my organization?
Step 1: collect evidence that the bad idea is bad
Data points, whether quantitative or qualitative, will serve you well. Collect it from credible sources.
Step 2: form alliances that can support how bad the bad idea is
If you collected the evidence from sources that your allies trust, show it to them. As you do so, do it in a way that they can start forming narratives that will serve both you and your allies in deciding what to stop (the bad idea) and where to place focus instead (ideally, one that advances the entire organization).
Step 3: have your allies convince the bad idea authors of the need to kill it
This is the step I didn’t follow, simply because I didn’t think I had any allies to do this sort of cross-pollination.
So I went to those forums in which they were trying to frame me in person, guarded by the evidence and slides I had put together that happened to fit the slide templates they gave me.
I know now that what I did was to build a narrative that confirmed the milestones they wanted me to hit. Examples: scope definition; problem statement; early measurements; analysis; go / no go decisions. You get the picture: project type of frame.
Step 4: be gracious when dealing with change matter. Even when change means killing someone else’s idea
One thing that most people in corporate life never really quite grasped is the fact that change matter is fragile.
It means two things basically:
- Incubate nascent ideas, in the sense of protection and nurturing
- Don’t abuse the bad idea too early. People will later blame you for the failure of the ultimate bad idea, just because you were the first to point out all of its vices
Step 5: make new allies out of their own bad idea
Since I wasn’t aggressive neither with the bad idea, nor with its authors, and went the extra mile as to tell a story that met the forum’s expectations, I was perceived as “going the extra mile” diligent worker and even earned bonus points for my organization in front of an otherwise hostile crowd.
Step 6: now, deflect focus to what really matters
Once the halo effect sets in, you have the opportunity to tell your new friends what you are going to be working next.
This is where you gracefully mentions a project where their expertise would make a difference.
Get creative here. By now you know more about the perceived problem than anyone else. Does it inspire you to find a different solution? Or think the opposite: this has proven to be misplaced focus. Shall we get back to focusing on X, the real enemy?
Narratives and storytelling matter in business. Master them and win the change management wars in your own organization.
It’s Your Turn
Whatever you do next, remember these two things:
- Tells us how you navigated a similar situation
- Don’t come up with another bad idea to counter the (original) bad idea. Otherwise, the entire organization will be back at square one!
If you enjoyed this article, please help out your friends with a 💙 or a share. It fuels my focus to write more of it, thanks!
Andre Piazza is a Product / Marketing leader in tech. He believes in building intelligent products, doing authentic Marketing and creating memorable user experiences. Connect with him on LinkedIn or say hi on Twitter.
