Ideas are cheap, execution is expensive.

A colleague shared this variation of the Chris Sacca quote with me recently and it has perfectly articulated something I have been feeling lately and here’s why:

When you consider Thinking Talents (please either read Angie McArthur and Dawna Markova’s book Collaborative Intelligence, or join the Bleeker Collective to learn more), most of mine lie in the Procedural and Analytical quadrants. My blind spot is Innovative.

Fortunately, I have the privilege to work with a lot of incredibly smart people who excel in the innovative quadrant to balance that out. In fact, it is actually quite wonderful to be exposed to so many excellent ideas. It energizes me to put those excellent ideas into action. That’s what I’m built to do. And I do it really well.

Unfortunately, not all ideas are good - and it is my personal opportunity for development to figure out how not to get personally offended by bad ideas.
(FYI I’m not talking about bad ideas in open, brainstorm-like sessions. I am referring to situations where an individual or a group are providing feedback or moving a body of work forwards and come with bad ideas.)

But Salimah, I thought that there was no such thing as a bad idea.

Oh strawman appearing in my blog, how wrong you are! Let me prove it to you:

Null Hypothesis: There are no bad ideas

i.e. Ho: Bad ideas = 0

Alternative Hypothesis: Bad ideas exists

i.e. H1: Bad ideas ≠ 0

Proof:

Genocide = bad idea

Human Trafficking = bad idea

Claiming a society is meritocratic when everyone has different starting points and there are systems in place to actively harm certain people = bad idea

∃ > 1 bad idea ∴ Reject Ho and accept H1. There are bad ideas. QED.

I recognize that the examples I provided are fairly extreme (side note - if you are even slightly considering debating me on any of the above,  just don’t). However, there are less extreme bad ideas that exist as well. In fact, I have a theory:

Theory: An idea from someone who has put zero thought or preparation before entering the discussion is a bad idea.

This is not to be confused with someone approaching with a beginner’s mindset. That person is meant to not have any context on the situation, they are self-aware of how they are showing up and their ideas are meant to be processed and analyzed prior to action. There is a lot of value in having that person in a conversation.

What I am talking about is someone who shows up and and starts spewing ideas without even glancing at what already exists or thinking about the group vision or end goal. The AUDACITY of showing up without even an iota of reflection and believing what they have to say has any value baffles me to no end. I am not even referring to a specific person, specific instance or a specific situation or context - because I posit that this happens to all of us.

Actually, we have all probably been that person at least once (I know I have). And that’s okay, it’s human to not always be self-aware or considerate. But it’s important to learn.

So, Pro-tip: If you are unprepared, show some respect to those who have made the effort and stop letting your bad ideas take up space. Do the work to think through your idea. Ask questions to figure out what you don’t know - and THEN share your idea.

The reason I feel so strongly about this ties back to what I said at the beginning of the blog: I am built to execute excellent ideas. To do that, I consider every idea that someone shares. I try to place it in the larger framework, think about what it will achieve, it’s implications, it’s execution. This is not easy, and it takes up a lot of mental energy, but I do it to respect the person sharing the idea. I find it infuriating when that person has not put in any effort on their part to meet me halfway.

Let’s not forget that the person with the idea only gets credit when the execution is done well, even when they are not the person who did the execution!

It’s hard enough to make great ideas work, let’s alleviate the burden of bad ideas – do everyone a favor and show up prepared. It’s that simple.

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Let me know what you think in the comments – don’t be scared 😉, by reading this blog I consider you prepared.