Tip 1
Resist the Instinct to Kill a New Idea
CCL research shows that self-awareness is a critical competency for any leader and a key determiner of how effective you will be throughout your career. That’s especially true when it comes to nurturing new ideas. If you want to embrace innovation, it’s important to recognize what your likely first response will be when you are faced with a proposal that is new and innovative.
For most of us, like it or not, our first instinct will be to kill the new idea out of hand, without stopping to give it proper consideration. When we try to align a new idea into our existing mental framework, we notice the sharp edges. We focus on what doesn’t fit instead of what does. Rather than embracing and nurturing the idea, we see it as a threat that we run away from or try to neutralize. That’s because new ideas challenge us in three important ways.
Threat 1
New Ideas Are Risky
By their very nature, new ideas are unproven. They might work, or they might not, and that means risk. As we rise through the leadership ranks, most of us are trained to eliminate risk and to avoid any moves that gamble the future of our organization on the unknown. As a result, we instinctively want to avoid the risk a new idea represents.
CCL’s experience with a senior marketing director for a large global organization says it all. When we asked him how he responded when people came to him with new ideas, he had an immediate and dramatic answer. “If 100 people in this organization came to me with new ideas, I would have to fire every one of them,” he said. “Unfortunately, another 100 people with ideas would stand up, and I would have to fire them too. Why can’t people just do what they have been asked and support the company strategy?”
In this leader’s mind, new ideas that might challenge the established company strategy were a threat to be eliminated, and he was just the guy to do it. What boundless opportunities must he have missed as a result.
Threat 2
New Ideas Can Challenge Power Structures
When a new idea takes hold, it can have a ripple effect. It can take individuals, departments, and organizations in a new direction, which opens the door for new power brokers to emerge. Those currently in power may lose influence or be forced to step aside completely.
Let’s say you work for a consumer products company. As ideas for new products emerge and become popular, the demand for existing brands may decline. That will likely trigger a drop in funding for existing products. Those in charge of the older brands may find they are no longer as valuable or influential in the company. Instead, the power structure shifts to those who control new brands.
If you’ve watched this happen to colleagues, what do you think your reaction would be when an idea for a new brand is presented? Would you embrace the new idea and nurture it along in a way that will benefit the broader organization? Or would you instead feel threatened and do your best to torpedo the new idea right out of the gate?
Threat 3
New Ideas Are Most Often Not Our Own
As human beings, many of us tend to fall victim to the well-known “not invented here” syndrome. We simply reject ideas that come from someone else. Perhaps we believe the idea won’t work because the person who came up with it doesn’t have the experience we do. Perhaps we resent not coming up with the idea ourselves. Whatever the case, this gut reaction can damage our objectivity and thus ability to evaluate a new idea.
Effective leaders find ways to break the pattern. They understand that most ideas will not be their own and can bubble up from anyone and anywhere in the organization. Rather than shouldering the sole responsibility for dreaming up new innovations, it is a leader’s role to encourage the new ideas we encounter, evaluate them fairly, and build on their potential.
Using Self-Awareness to Break the Pattern
Understanding how your brain works can be a big help in developing the self-awareness you need to embrace new ideas and give them a fair shot. When we are faced with information that threatens our status quo, our natural tendency is to either fight it off tooth and nail or distance ourselves from the threat.
This “fight or flight” response is hardwired into our limbic system—a very large and well-developed part of the brain. When the limbic system senses a threat and reacts, it can swamp the reactions of the much smaller prefrontal cortex—the “executive judgment” center that is typically in charge as you make decisions and move through your day.
Let’s say you are riding an elephant and guiding it using reins, but the elephant suddenly gets spooked and charges forward on its own, ignoring the reins entirely. That’s how your brain operates. Most of the time the rational, cognitive part of your brain is in control. But when a perceived threat emerges, the limbic system takes charge and gallops around wherever it wants. New ideas and the threat they represent can trigger the elephant to take charge.
Rather than reasoning through what’s good and what’s bad about a new idea, we simply kill it and move on.
To break the pattern, we need to slow down, become more mindful, and pay attention to our responses. This self-awareness is essential to making sense of a situation and to understanding why we’re reacting in the way that we are. Rather than giving in to the “fight or flight” instincts that are our natural, neurological response, we can take a deep breath, reassess the situation, and moderate the rampaging elephant.
This “slowing down” to notice and understand your reactions can be hard unless you have a fair degree of self-awareness. Without it, in many ways you are living in a protective bubble that insulates you from ideas, actions, and beliefs that challenge the status quo and your own preconceived notions of the world.
The bubble shields you from criticism and accountability for mistakes, and it keeps you from developing an accurate understanding of your strengths and your limitations.
You are thus unlikely to recognize your “fight or flight” instinct when it kicks in, making it impossible for you to give new ideas proper consideration.
Leaders who are self-aware know who they are, what they are reasonably capable of, what their weaknesses are, how their behavior affects others, and how others see them. Self-aware leaders may still inhabit a bubble where they retreat during particularly stressful times, but it is relatively thin, transparent, and permeable. They can confidently take in new information and ideas that their less self-aware counterparts might consider a threat. They are able to recognize their destructive tendencies, rise above them, and make sound choices that benefit themselves and the team they lead. As a result, they are less likely to flee from new ideas or to derail them right out of the gate.
Conquering the “Fight or Flight” Response
Are you truly aware of how you react to new ideas? Try this exercise to help you become more attuned to your responses:
•Close your eyes and think of a new idea you’ve encountered at work or in your personal life that seemed risky to you.
•Focus on those risks and notice your physical reaction. Does the very notion of the new idea cause your mind to race, your breathing to become heavier, or your heart to beat at a higher than normal rate? Are you experiencing numbness or tingling from the surge of adrenaline?
•Now, take a breath and imagine the possible positive outcomes if the idea were to be fully and successfully executed. As you envision this more positive future, notice your physical reaction. Is your mind more focused? Are your breathing and heart rate more normal? Are you experiencing less numbness and tingling?
•Try this same refocusing exercise as you encounter other new ideas. With practice, you can “change tracks” in your mind, think of new ideas more positively, and begin to embrace the possibilities they might represent.