“We’ve tried that before.”
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You’ve proposed an idea you’re really excited about, and watch it receive the kiss of death with these four words. Unfortunately, this statement often misses a larger point:
There is a big difference between “idea” and “execution”.
Someone says they want to build an app for sharing photos. As an idea, that has been tried before. Yet we now have Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. These are three different apps that let you share photos in three different ways. They have the same central idea — sharing photos — but have each been executed entirely differently.
Ideas are easy; execution is hard. A single person can come up with an idea, but it usually takes a good team to execute on all facets of the end result. Complexity, style, speed, competitive landscape, marketing strategy and more can make or break a product or feature. There’s a lot of room to go wrong, and many good ideas end up poorly executed.
Often, when someone says “no” to an idea, they’re turning it down because they’ve brought to mind a poor execution. It’s a bit like turning down a type of dish because they didn’t like how it was once prepared. It’s true, they might not like pizza, but they might enjoy it with different toppings.
As ever, when solving a problem, it’s never a good thing to be stubbornly married to a solution. Some ideas don’t gain traction for some very good reasons. But the reverse is true of turning down an idea — an approach to solving the problem — because a previous manifestation from that category was poorly executed.
The trick lies in clarifying whether the objection lies in the idea or the execution. Proposing a better execution means understanding the shortcomings of the previous attempt. Changes in context can make this easy — a new tool or technology can provide the leverage needed for a success.
But if it’s not clear why another execution failed, it might be the idea after all. Maybe fish flavored candy will never be a hit. Drop it and run.
