Updated: Dec 8, 2019
Ideas don’t come out fully formed, they only become clear when you work on them – Mark Zuckerberg
Ideas are defined as: a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action. Ideas are needed for solutions to real or perceived challenges, obstacles and opportunities. Generating ideas is key to exploring our own potential and the potential in all areas of our personal, work and community lives. Ideas are foundational to innovation, change and improvement. Indeed it is impossible to imagine our world absent of ideas!
But, not all ideas are good, nor are they worth pursuing, and nascent ideas can be fragile and crushed before they have chance to fully form. So how do we identify the good or best ideas as they present themselves to us? How do we nurture and evaluate them that we might know which ones to pursue? How can we have confidence in our ideas? Zuckerberg posits that clarity is found by working on them.
As a coach, much of my work with leaders in business is centered around solutions to:
- Overcome challenges, things or people that are in the way
- Create new ways of being or operating
- Establish goals and take advantage of opportunities and potential
- Chart a way forward for the business or organization
- Improve relationships
After all who doesn’t want to become better in one or more of these areas?
When asked what has been the most helpful part of a coaching session, more than 90% of the time my clients will express receiving tremendous value from:
- Exploring their ideas and hearing themselves express them aloud
- Being heard and hearing their ideas reflected back in different ways
- Going deeper through powerful questions
All of which serve to bring clarity and help to set direction.
A trusted partner or partners who will listen, ask questions without judgment and genuinely seek to support our ideation process is invaluable. We cannot underestimate the importance of trust. So many leaders are reluctant to share ideas they haven’t fully formed, or they question the validity of, because they don’t know who they can trust and don’t want to risk being judged, or have their idea exposed before its time. For these reasons and others like them many ideas die in the minds of men and women limiting individual potential and impact rather than generating life, energy and joy that is to be experienced through creativity, innovation and solutions.
It is in sharing our ideas, challenging them and fully forming them that we can separate them into those we pursue and those that are not worth following. By sharing we can also gain confidence in them as well as our ability to carry them out. So find yourself a trusted partner and maximize your potential and impact by working on your ideas!
