As an A/E marketer with more than 20 years of experience in a variety of management roles, I have developed a management style that tries to make all team members comfortable enough to offer their own ideas.
The fact is that every team member has a contribution worth considering, if the team leader can get them to open up and share. Everyone has a "horse of a different color" idea that can take a team out of the box to an original solution.
Recently, I had the fortuitous accident of running across a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, a writer, researcher, advisor, teacher, and speaker with a strong focus on creativity. In this TED talk, he said:
"The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it's to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they are valued."
As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, it's always sweet when someone I respect makes a statement that validates something I've believed and/or been doing for a while. When it's a person who has worldwide respect in that area of thought, it's even sweeter.
So let me talk a bit about how I go about getting all team members to contribute their ideas.
I start by defining three ground rules for the discussion:
- Every legitimate suggestion merits discussion.
- No suggestion (or person making the suggestion) can be ridiculed.
- A thought we dismissed in the past could be the right course of action today.
Once I have opened a subject for discussion and defined the parameters of the issue, I stop talking and listen to the discussion. I work to be aware of who is contributing and who is not. I try to limit my own talking to moderating the discussion and keeping it on track.
Once I know who is not contributing, I watch those people for clues that signal they have had an idea but need to be coaxed a bit, made comfortable with the idea of speaking up, before they will open up and share that idea.
When I spot someone like that, I recognize them, mention that they look like they have a comment, and ask them specifically what they think of the current idea. They may suggest a small tweak or even an alternative to that possibility, or they may just say they think it's fine.
If they simply agree with the idea, I will ask specifically if they have another alternative to offer. Most of the time, once they have heard their own voice answering the first question, they are less timid about answering my second question.
As I make sure that every person gets to hear his or her own voice, they become more confident each time they are called upon. After varying lengths of time, each of these folks will become so used to contributing that they won't need coaxing.
At that point, I sit down with that person in private and talk about how pleased I am with their progress. Then we talk about another set of measurable goals that can be built upon this new success.