Trigger Question #82:
What do you do when a team member or a colleague proposes a wacky idea?
Some of us find it funny-ha-ha, pick ourselves up off the floor, and carry on as before. Others of us find it funny-peculiar, frown absentmindedly as we mull on its wackiness, and carry on distractedly.
But a few of us find it a whack to the head. Our jaws drop, we stare into the distance, and carry on thinking.
If you are in the funny-ha-ha reaction camp, then know this. Some people will pepper you with wacky ideas just to hear you laugh, to waste your time, and to lighten their day.
If you are in the funny-peculiar reaction camp, some people will try again in case they can find a wacky idea that will whack you into paying attention.
And if you are in the whack-to-the-head… Wait. I must first explain this camp. Better yet, I will let Aristotle explain it, assuming he said it like this: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
If you are in the whack-to-the-head camp, then people will feel it safe to risk sharing with you what others consider way too wacky to have any merit. They know you will listen before judging; that you can entertain a thought without accepting it or rejecting it.
Why do you need wacky ideas? Because wacky ideas make you think deeper and differently. Because you never know where they may lead. Because, once upon a time, attempting to sail around a flat earth was a way-out wacky idea.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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My thanks to Roger von Oech, who indirectly triggered this Trigger Question, because of the title of one of his books, namely A Whack on the Side of the Head.
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