The Expert Podcast

…So if you're part of any type of group like your employer or a social group or a family. A lot of times the idea comes up where you may have suggestions. Maybe your company has a suggestion box. Maybe you have somebody who you'd like to give ideas to. As an individual within a group it might seem tempting to give suggestions and ideas to the group for the purpose of advancement but keeping by keeping in mind that the suggestion box reality there's more than meets the eye behind it And there's some ways to use it to your advantage And also. To avoid hidden traps with the suggestion box mentality where you're giving people ideas I had a good idea You should do this. Maybe there's a. Physical suggestion box where you write something on a piece of paper and put it in. So anytime you put a suggestion, Into a group, whether it's a formal written paper and a box or just a an idea in a meeting or you go to your boss and say here's something we should do. Or if you go to your family and say here's here's a good idea for us, what you are now creating. Is an extra job for somebody. That's suggestion now becomes a hot potato Somebody's got to do it either You ignore it or you do it. And the first question is going to be who actually does it. When you put that suggestion out there even if it does have…a valuable result or it would result in a benefit to your group to your tribe to your family, somebody's got to do it There's work involved. The question is. Is that work? Worth the…positive result because. If you just throw a suggestion out there. And somebody else does it and you get the result Well then that seems like a good return on investment Right It's free You get a re benefit. And the other person has to do all the work. Even if that person gets some benefit as well or the group gets a benefit, is the resulting benefit worth the price of admission meaning that is the effort. valuable compared to the result. And sometimes it's unknown Sometimes it may appear that it is but until you actually go through the entire process, You're not going to know whether or not the benefits outweigh the effort. The other question is who does it? Maybe even if the excess benefits outweigh the result, there's not capacity within that organization to actually do it. Everybody might have full-time jobs and their days are full already. There may not be extra capacity to do it. There's also many times unintended consequences of projects. You put you start a project you have a great idea. You think it's going to result in extra profit. maybe growth of a company maybe benefit for the family. But as you go through that process you realize oh wait a minute we forgot about this Oh this happened. Or there was this downside or error that we didn't. count on. Unintended consequences are always there even in your own life, I'm sure you run into unintended consequences So how do you take a good idea that you have and make something out of it for yourself rather than it just throwing it out there like a hot potato expecting somebody else to do it. Well, Well we recommend doing and this will benefit you and whatever organization you're a part of your family your business, your social group, your company you work for. Is to first. Run with it a little bit yourself. Do some of the legwork do some of the due diligence to find out well are there any obstacles are there any problems Are there any. Is there enough capacity to do it and is the theory that I have at. vetted Does it actually make sense…The other thing you want to do is make sure even if it does make sense is it worth the price of admission If you put 20 hours into some project but you only get a minuscule return? Yeah it's it's beneficial but it didn't equal the amount of work that went into it. And also the priority of attention Anytime you put attention into a project or some, effort it takes it away from something else So even if that project. Ends up being profitable or beneficial. It might. Take away. Results from some other projects So it might be a breakeven. Right. So that what we call suggestion box reality just throwing suggestions or ideas or, or…You know ID or projects out there. Now you're putting work on somebody else You're putting an obligation on somebody else to do it So what you want to do is…do a little bit of yourself because that way you'll get more of the credit for an idea by itself. doesn't really necessitate all of the credit for the results because it still requires a lot of effort. A lot of people come up with ideas and that suggestion box reality is there's more than just the idea. So if you flush out the idea a little bit yourself start doing some of the legwork. So when you bring it and put it on the table now instead of just somebody just throwing ideas out there, you actually have taken the time to vet it to filter it out to make sure that there's no unintended consequences. The other thing is if you throw an idea out there you're just putting work on somebody else It may seem like a good idea because all you're seeing is the end result the benefit the prize at the end of that. F that project. But to do that lots of people have to do work There may be expenses involved There may be hours of research There may be labor involved There may be. The people dropping other. So by just throwing an idea out there in the suggestion box or virtually. You're now putting. Work tag on somebody else. And even if they might get a benefit from it, The benefits not a hundred percent known until it's proven to be true And how many businesses out there? even a whole business they have a lot of planning succeed. You know most businesses don't last two years So…how, what's the percentage of an idea actually succeeding. If you want to…have an idea…Be yours to get the credit from. Run with it a little bit yourself first before you just throw it out there like a hot potato to let somebody else do. Vet the idea flush out some of the problems. take the initiative to research some of the potential pros and cons that way when you're presenting you're not just throwing out an idea on the table that somebody else has to do the work you've done some of the work which means you may get more of the credit. And also you're not going to be known as somebody just throws ideas out there that may have. Some downsides that you're not aware of because the people who do this for a living. Find problems with ideas and they filter them out Really You put 10 ideas on the table Really only two or three are probably going to end up being good because there's other things that either are known or unknown that are going to be problems If you already filter those out, you'll be known as the person in your organization whether it's a company, A work environment a family environment a friendship group, you'll be known as the one that your ideas are always good They're not going to be ones that everybody already knows No that's not going to work because we already tried that this has this problem because you're blind to those unintended consequences. You're already flushing them out So you'll be the genius because you're the one that only has all the good ideas.