Four tips to nurture an imaginative idea
A colleague at work, in business or in your personal life, shares an idea born from their imagination. How will you respond? I suggest you choose ‘imaginative listening’ to allow space for their idea to grow.
Bold ideas, so often, sound crazy when first spoken out loud. They’re great in your head when you’ve not yet shared them with anyone. But tell a manager, your peers in business, your team or a friend, and then, watch their response.
A hasty and dismissive comment could send this original thought to the ‘ideas graveyard’.
Instead, you can nurture an idea by listening well, imaginatively. Because the biggest winners are often the boldest ideas, the kind some will call ‘crazy’, ‘wouldn’t have a bar of it’.
Like the musical Hamilton. Its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda received repeated knockbacks when he shared how he wanted to tell the story of Alexander Hamilton in a hip-hop based musical. Thankfully, he ignored all the naysayers and instead, trusted his instincts to produce an ‘overnight’ sensation.
How can you avoid being the one who knocks back Lin-Manuel Miranda. In hindsight, there must be many regrets about that one.
Of course, there are no guarantees that you won’t ever let a great idea slip away.
But you could try imaginative listening.; it would leave open the possibility that even a seemingly way-out-there crazy idea has merit.
Here are a few tips:
Recognise and acknowledge the courage needed to share an idea; “Every time we are told that our ideas don’t have merit, a little part of our imagination goes dark,” writes Brian Reich in The Imagination Gap. “Our willingness to use and apply imagination diminishes.”
Remember an early stage idea is not yet fully formed. Reserve judgement to allow space for it to grow.
Ask yourself, ‘what am I risking if I encourage this idea to be further explored’. For an early stage idea, most likely, you’re not risking much, not even monies. The only commitment, at this stage, might be your colleague’s time to imagine.
Manage expectations; don’t expect immediate results or a speedy outcome. An idea needs to simmer to fully form and often, teamwork to mature. And not every idea will cross over from the imagination into the ‘real’ world. But the exciting part is that some will.
The Olympics remind that the seemingly impossible can be within our grasp. We might not all be able to claim our spot in the history books as Olympians but we can still imagine. What might happen next if….