Challenging Your Naysayers

How often do new and different ideas and approaches meet with resistance? In any team or group there are naysayers.

• The bean counter who says: “We can’t afford it”
• The engineer who proclaims:  “That will never work.”  or “It can’t be done.”
• The tenured folks who may say: “That’s not how we do things here.”

It’s enough to drive an optimist into submission.  And sometimes it does.

What’s a Leader to Do?

Here are my ideas:

• Gain agreement on the desired outcome and/or intended result of the new idea or action.
• When you hear obstacles and objections being raised, don’t indiscriminately accept them.  Question their validity.
• Understand that the primary emotion in play here is fear.  What can you do to relieve the concerns that are driving that fear?
• Armed with the agreement on the outcome: challenge the naysayers with some form of this simple, challenging question:

“What’s it going to take?”

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The Power in this “Leading” Question

Engaging your followers in this challenge launches a conversation of possibilities. There is no place for negativity when the topic is possibility.  The assumption is that the goal is attainable given the right support, resources and commitment.  If we discover that we are not willing to pay the price, at least it’s an informed decision.  It’s a decision making process that avoids giving in at the first sign of an obstacle. And, that decision can lead to alternative actions and plans.

Leading Possibility Thinking

And when you are leading a possibilities brainstorming discussion, you should invoke the guideline/rule:  There is no such thing as a bad idea.   While there may be some ideas that we don’t use, none are immediately judged as rejects.  One off-the-wall idea can stimulate other more useful ideas.  But not if they are suppressed.

Two Steps to Negating Negativity

To summarize simply, consider these two steps.

1. Gain consensus on the value of your desired outcome
2. Challenge the group by asking:  What’s it going to take?

If you’re saying to yourself; “that just won’t work for me”, allow me to ask…

 What would it take for you to believe that it would work?

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Related Posts

• The Nays Have It
• Taking the “NO” Out of Innovation
• Negating Negativity: A One Word Solution