You want to share your great ideas to improve the business, but if you’re like many employees we work with, sometimes it’s hard to know just how or when to share them.

Maybe you’ve had a bad experience before and it feels safer to stay silent.

Or, perhaps you’re not quite sure if your idea is a good idea. But what it if IS a great idea, and you don’t share it?

If you’re not feeling confident about speaking up, you’re not alone.

In our research for Courageous Cultures, 40% of respondents said they lack the confidence to share their ideas.

67% said their managers operates around the notion of “this is the way we’ve always done it.

And 50% said they worry nothing will happen to their ideas anyway– so why bother?

And yet, during this challenging time of fast pivots, hybrid teams, and return to the office, your voice matters more than ever!

Can you imagine how much better things could be if we all came to work with one important question on our minds, “How can we make things better?”  And then shared those creative ideas and did something about them?

If you haven’t already done this – download our I.D.E.A. Incubator Guide. It’s your free guide to a power-packed team innovation session that will mobilize courage and increase team engagement.

5 Important Steps to Share Your Ideas So They’re More Likely to Be Heard

We don’t want either of these reasons to prevent you from sharing your good ideas, so we’ve put together these practical steps to make it a bit easier.

1. Navigate the Narrative: Understand how past experiences may be creating FOSU (Fear of Speaking Up).

In Courageous Cultures terms, we call this “Navigating the Narrative.”

It’s human nature to remember a negative experience you had speaking up more than a positive one. This means an important step in gaining the confidence to speak up is to remember the times that you did speak up and it made a difference.

Think back on your career. What would you describe as your biggest moments of courage? Can you recall a time that you spoke up, even when you were nervous, challenged a decision, or shared an idea and it made all the difference?

P.S. We would love to hear about your biggest moments of courage in the comments below (e.g. I stopped a bully, I confronted my boss. I challenged the data.)

Courage breeds more courage, both in ourselves and with others.

2. Create Clarity: Ensure you understand the strategic priorities.

Most of the time when leaders tell us that their team is not that strategic, or express concern that they’re getting too many ideas they can’t use, the biggest issue is a lack of clarity about what matters most.

Yes, it’s your boss’s job to translate strategic priorities and to help you understand how you can add the most value … including what problems they’re looking to solve and where they need a great idea.

However, we all know that no manager is perfect, and sometimes this communication breaks down.

If you’re unsure of the strategic priorities, ask your manager with an approach like this.

I really care about this company and the success of our team.

I have some ideas I want to share that could help us to improve, but I want to ensure they’re on point.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’re working on right now? Are you open to some of my ideas in that arena?

3. Cultivate Curiosity

One surprising part of our courageous cultures research was that 49% of the respondents (across all levels of the business), said that they are not regularly asked for their ideas.

And, the sad truth is that many managers think they ARE asking because they have an open door.  Which is great, but not enough.

We’re working hard on spreading the word on the importance of asking well.

In the meantime, our hope for you is that you won’t wait to be asked.

We want to ensure your voice is heard and that your feel confident to share your ideas.

Ask yourself and others a good courageous question.

If you want to cultivate curiosity about how to make things better, the easiest way to start is by asking courageous questions of yourself and others.

A courageous question differs from a generic “How can we improve?” question in that it’s both specific and vulnerable.

It’s specific in that the focus is narrow, you’re just thinking and talking about one area to improve. And it’s vulnerable because it assumes that improvement is possible.

For example:

• “What’s one thing we do that really frustrates our customers (and what can we do about it)?”
• “What’s one thing that’s sabotaging our productivity right now (and what should we do instead)?”
• “If we could make one change to improve the quality of our remote meetings, what would that be (and how can we make that happen)?”

One easy technique we teach leaders in our strategic leadership and fishbowl programs is called Own the U.G.L.Y.

You don’t have to be the one in charge to run people through these strategic questions. You can learn more about this process by downloading our free Idea Incubator Guide.

Own the U.G.L.Y.

U- What are we Underestimating?

G- What’s got to Go?

L- Where are We Losing?

Y- Where are we missing the Yes?

4. Share Your I.D.E.A.s

Sometimes when a good idea goes unnoticed, it’s just a matter of positioning.

To ensure your voice is heard, and help your ideas attract the attention they deserve, use our I.D.E.A. model to position them.

I-Interesting

Why is this idea interesting? What strategic problem does it solve? How will results improve from this idea (e.g. customer experience, employee retention, efficiency)?

D- Doable

Is this idea something we could actually do? How would we make it happen? What would make it easier or more difficult?

E- Engaging

Who would we need to engage to make this happen? Why should they support it? Where are we most likely to meet resistance?

A- Actions

What are the most important actions needed to try this? How would we start?

5. Respond with Regard

Of course, one of the best ways to ensure your voice is heard is to actively listen to the ideas of others.

When a coworker, project team member, or even your boss shares an idea, how you respond makes all the difference in their willingness to keep speaking up, and of course, will impact how they respond to your ideas.

If you want a team culture where everyone comes to work asking “How can we make this better?”, getting good at responding with regard to ideas (even if they are half-baked or off-base) makes all the difference.

Start Here to Ensure Your Voice is Heard

We want to ensure your voice is heard, so we’ve shared a lot here to give you some options to consider as you consider and share your ideas.

The most important part is to start.

Ask yourself, “How can we make things better around here?” Think about (and share) one I.D.E.A. that would help.

And then, ask your co-workers the same question and ensure their voice is heard too.

Want more tools and ideas like this to build a Courageous Culture?

First, download your free copy of the Let’s Grow Leaders I.D.E.A. Incubator Guide. Then, watch this video about our book – your roadmap to a Courageous Culture.

The post Share Your Ideas: Practical Ways to Ensure Your Voice is Heard appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

It’s tragic when your attempt to protect your team members actually sabotages team innovation. If you really want a courageous culture, that means you go first. Your team is watching both what you do AND what you say. Psychological safety matters.

She Wasn’t TRYING to Sabotage Team Innovation

Back in my Fortune 10 job, I sat in an executive meeting with my peers when “Lori” (my boss) explained that “Bob,” a junior-level executive (also in the room) had “gotten away” with challenging her boss, “Joanne” with a new idea.

She shared:

When Bob started to challenge her and share his idea, I was really afraid for his career, but Joanne (the executive with the big title) actually seemed okay with it.

She laughed as she said how lucky he was that he wasn’t fired, and how other people hadn’t faired so well in the past. Everyone else laughed along uncomfortably.

Bob didn’t smile.

Would you?

Many Years Later…

Many years later, I’m still wondering exactly WHY she said that. Did she realize how her clumsy attempt at humor would sabotage team innovation and stifle good ideas?

I’m pretty sure it was an attempt to portray her boss as more reasonable than her reputation allowed.

But nothing in her commentary was a “How can we speak up more effectively?” conversation.

Lori had a reputation as a groomer of executive talent. We respected her point of view. We all took her comments as a warning story rather than a “see YOU CAN bring up ideas” story.

This ad-hoc leadership story reinforced that an executive really listening to someone a few levels below was not the norm.

Her unspoken message to all of us was to “play it safe.” Don’t speak up. Don’t challenge those above.

What if instead, she had said this:

Bob had a remarkable idea the other day and he did such a good job advocating for his position to Joanne. I know that took courage, Bob, because we don’t always do that well around here and that’s a shame.

Great job. She loved it. We need more of this!

I know you have great ideas and I want to be known as a team that thinks strategically and critically about the business.

If you have ideas you want to share, I’m here to support you.

The Research

In our Courageous Cultures research, 40% of the respondents said that they “lack the confidence” to share their ideas. And as we dug underneath the numbers through interviews with managers around the world, we consistently heard about managers “coaching” their employees to play it safe.

This means that even if you really do want people to share ideas, and are open to being challenged respectfully—there might be a manager below you “protecting their team” and encouraging them to hold back.

And, it also means that an off-handed comment you make to protect your team from unwanted executive exposure could actually sabotage innovation.

Don’t Inadvertently Sabotage Team Innovation: Try this Instead

1. Prepare the ground for discussion.

Talk to your manager and ask for opportunities to share new ideas. You can try something like this.

I’m so committed to the work we are doing, particularly the ________ (insert strategy or project here). I’ve been encouraging my team to be consistently on the look out for how we can improve and do things more effeciently and create a better experience for our customers. I’d love to give them some opportunites for exposure and to share their ideas with you from time to time. Would you be open to that?

2. Create clarity.

This next step is critical, particularly if you’re working in a culture where speaking up is not the norm.

Be really clear about two things: (1) that you really want people’s ideas; and (2) provide some clarity about what kinds of ideas would be most helpful.

If you are a manager of managers, that means being really clear with them that you want to hear from their teams too.

And also important, be sure everyone on your team understands your strategic priorities so they can bring you better ideas.

3. Help your team vet their ideas.

Help your team lift up better ideas by teaching them what a great idea looks like. And then, even when an organic opportunity emerges to share an idea, they can quickly use this framework to position their idea so it will be more likely to be heard.

The Let’s Grow Leaders I.D.E.A. Model

I-Interesting

This is where you get your team to think about (and be prepared to position) their ideas in terms of how they are strategically aligned with your priorities.

Ask them to consider why the person they are pitching it to would find it interesting.

What strategic problem does it solve?

How will results improve from this idea (e.g. customer experience, employee retention, efficiency)?

D-Doable

Particularly now, with everything that is going on, even the best ideas can feel overwhelming. Help your team consider if this is something that they could actually do right now, and why. If the idea is easy-to-implement have them explain why in terms the executive will understand.

E-Engaging

This is where you help your team think about stakeholders and who else might need to be involved. Who would we need to engage to make this happen? Why should they support it? Where are we most likely to meet resistance?

A-Actions

What are the most important actions needed to try this? How would we start? Bonus points if you can assign some of these first key actions to yourself.

Click image to download the IDEA Model

4. Recognize and celebrate the sharing.

When your team member does speak up and share their ideas (even if they aren’t being used), respond with regard (read more about that here) and then celebrate publicly (like the re-write scenario) from above. The more people see their peers speaking up, sharing ideas, and not just surviving, but thriving, the more they will be willing to give it a try.

Your turn

How do you support team innovation and problem-solving?

Get a FREE Download of the first few chapters of Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers and Customer Advocates here.

Learn more about our research on Psychological Safety and Courage at Work

See Also: How to Be a More Courageous Manager

Psychological Safety or More Courage? What Your Team Needs Now

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