How to kill an idea — and what to do to prevent it.

It is extremely easy to destroy a new idea. It takes just a few words, sometimes a nonverbal cue is enough to kill an idea, and most often, we destroy it ourselves with our inner critic before it is even allowed to see the light of day.

Here's how to change that.

Most ideas die before anyone else has a chance to kill them. My rough guess, based mostly on observing myself: eighty percent never leave our heads at all.

That is not your fault. Your inner critic has been trained extremely well since your earliest days. And you probably got lots of proof that is risky to voice a new idea because many of those have been immediately killed by simple and seemingly innocent phrases we are all very familiar with.

And so, your inner critic tells you all these phrases in your head and tries to convince you that «this idea does not deserve to be named».

A young idea offers nothing at first glance

An organisation rewards proof, predictability, and scalability. A young idea can offer none of these things (yet).

This is maybe why these killer phrases are so pervasive in organisation. The system just tries to protect itself. What the system does not realize is that it is missing out, that by killing most new ideas it also does not bring in fresh air, new approaches, which are necessary for long term success and even survival.

There are tactics as old as time to send a message to someone daring something new telling them that «what you want is not endorsed by the system».

I think it is extremely helpful to be intimately familiar with these phrases and tactics and to be able to recognize them instantly when they are thrown at us. If we know them, we can better ignore them or establish ways to prevent them coming up so predictably.

Some of these killer phrases or tactics are easy to spot. Others are more subtle. Here are the ones I have encountered:

• Conjuring up risk and danger: People who want to do things differently than they are done by society at large often hear warnings about the dangers related to the new idea. When I share the idea of my parenting philosophy called «Hands Off Parenting», stating that from my point of view children need accompaniment, not rules or prohibitions, there are people suddenly popping up warning about society crumbling if all children are parented like this, because this parenting method will produce only egomaniacs who have no interest in being part of society.
• «This will not work»: People try to kill ideas by pretending they can look into the future and can see what surely will happen. I remember so many projects at BrainStore where clients did not pursue truly interesting ideas because top management stated that they will not work. And often, a few years later, I see another company implementing this innovation.
• «People will not understand this»: While it is commendable to make sure that ideas are understood, this is another killer phrase that is designed to preserve the status quo. This is funny to me as any technology or development needs to rely on being adopted by people who have not known this idea before. I think we can give people some credit.
• «We have already tried that»: Even if they have tried something that is 90% different to what you are proposing, the belief that a new idea is something that has already been tried is extremely prevalent. The reason this one is so insidious to me is that it sounds very convincing and even sober. But to me, over time, it has become a sign of fear rather than experience. Something you tried did not work once, and now you think anything new might fail.
• «That is not how we do things here», sometimes also showing up as «are you new here?»: Putting the person into their place is a move as old as time. Both phrases suggest that the person who brings the idea is just not acquainted with the secrets and mechanics of this very, very special place. The truth is that most environments follow the logic that is very similar and much more common than unique.
• «Let me think about that and get back to you»: This often is a firm NO in disguise. Everyone I talked to about this list told me: This is jargon for «this is never going to happen»
• «I have a concern»: I encounter this killer phrase mostly in environments that have been established as «flat» or «non-hierarchical». Here, the agreement in many cases is that someone has to voice an important concern in order to stop an idea from being further tested or pursued. So, in this environment, voicing a concern can often stall everything or bring it to total standstill, even if the official culture is built to actually prevent that. The problem with this is, that the operating system of the organisation has changed, but the culture and conditioning in people is still the one from the old operating system. It is very hard to change.

Two bonus entries that happen mostly in private life and not in organisations:

• «Are you sure?»: When I voice an idea that I am going to implement or try, I often get an incredulous «are you sure?» from my surroundings. My friend Ondine said about this: Seriously, who can be sure of anything when there are 100 possible scenarios with 1,000 variations? Huh? Obviously, I'm not sure, but I'm just going to do it anyway 😬 . Ondine, you are my girl!
• «I am too old for this»: When I offer someone an idea (which of course, they can refuse or ignore anytime), I often hear from people as young as 30: «I am too old for this». This makes me sad. I think we can be ready to try new things at any age.

Now read the list again, thinking of your inner critic: Which one of these are you telling yourself, before you even dare to bring an idea to the table? Maybe they are something like «nobody will listen to this», «this is not thought through enough» or «I am too old for this». And the price you pay for not bringing the idea to the table is not that it might have been killed. The problem is that it never got the chance to be heard, to have potentially created a spark, to have been, potentially, an idea that changes everything.

I dare you to try this for a week:

For one week, keep a note on your phone. Every time you decide not to say something — in a meeting, at dinner, in a conversation — write down what you did not say. Just one line. Do not act on it, do not judge it, do not develop it.

At the end of the week, read the list.

Most people are surprised by two things: how long it is, and how good some of the ideas that were never mentioned are.

Now: What can be done to guard those tiny plants?

As you can see, there are so many of these tactics and they can be very tempting to believe. Which makes it very likely that most new ideas are buried when they are not even fully formed, which makes it very likely that excellent ideas are killed every single day. Just think of it this way: Ideas that are not fully «baked» yet are especially fragile, because they are the exact opposite of what an organisation is looking for.

So, what can be done?

Below are my counter-tactics to ensure that more ideas see the light of day and have a chance to grow a little. There are enough obstacles on the way to implementation, and it's really not necessary to kill ideas when they are barely formed yet.

Facilitation approaches

If you are a person who is used to facilitate meetings, discussions or gatherings, there is a lot you can do to make sure small idea plants are not trampled instantly. For instance, you can

— amplify ideas presented by others, for instance by being curious and by asking questions to find out more about ideas presented.

— give ideas a moment to shine. In more than one team, I have established the habit that new ideas get showered with praise for at least 5 minutes. The job is to think about how the idea could be successful, what is great about it, and what might work, rather than immediately talking about problems that idea might present

— ask a question related to the idea. If someone presents a new idea, ask: «What are you trying to solve with this idea?» and then let everyone come up with additional ideas based on that question. This way, the idea first presented has company, and everyone can start discussing which ideas resonate most and could potentially solve the problem presented best.

— model the «Yes, and» approach: In improv theater the cardinal rule is to follow the idea of the person who just spoke. This is a great thing to try related to new ideas. Instead of Yes, but! This is another way to talk about an idea that focuses on expanding and improving rather than killing it. Imagine someone in improv dropping the line «let's fly to the moon with this car now!» and the improv partner sitting in the imaginary car next to them saying «cars can't fly!». Bit of a buzzkill, no?

— Ask «what could we do next?» Imagine just the next step to explore an idea further. What could we do next? How could we test this? (Hint: Not just «let's have a meeting»). This question suggests that this idea is valid, at least until the next step. It gives it a chance to grow another few inches at least.

— «Fuckup» event: Normalizing the stories of ideas that did not work by talking about them. Organize an event where everyone can share what they fucked up and what they learned. It can be immensely fun and a chance for everyone to laugh, learn and grow.

Experiment, iterate, learn

Truly the best way to test ANY idea is to think about the first prototype of this idea you could build. A prototype is something that is more tangible than the description of your idea. Something you can show or demonstrate to others and get feedback. With the feedback, you can build your next version or start again from scratch. The important thing is to not invest a lot of time nor money into this but to just create enough of a prototype to test it. Here are some variations of this principle:

— «Safe-to-fail» experiments as distinct from "safe" ones — a framing from Dave Snowden's Cynefin work: you're not trying to guarantee success, you're trying to make the failure cheap and informative.

— A premortem before real investment — Gary Klein's technique of imagining the idea has already failed and working backward to why, which surfaces the fragile assumptions early and privately.

— Keeping a visible "idea backlog" or parking lot so half-formed things aren't forced to either die or be fully specced on the spot — they get to just exist for a while, and sometimes they might come in handy.

— Prototyping as cheaply and roughly as possible (paper, a rough mockup, a manual "fake it" version) so the idea can be tested without needing organizational resources yet.

Political approaches

If you are in a larger organisation, you might want to use some of the following approaches to get support for your idea. I do not particularly like these approaches, because for me, they fall into the category of «playing office» (performing actions that are deemed necessary in an organisation but often not serving a productive purpose) - but I can see that they might be smetimes necessary in highly hierarchical environments to make survival of ideas even possible.

— Find someone to buy your idea time: A senior sponsor who gives "air cover" — not necessarily hands-on, but able to absorb pressure from above and buy the idea time or even willing to present the idea (because, unfortunately, it matters WHO presents an idea in a hiearchical environment).

— Build a small coalition of allies: Do this before going wide — an idea presented for the first time to a large, skeptical group rarely survives; the same idea vetted by two or three trusted peers first has a much better shot.

— Translating the idea into language that fits: Framing in the language the org already rewards (risk reduction, strategic fit, cost avoidance) even while the idea itself is still exploratory — not spin, just translation.

— Amplifying ideas: Often, junior people or women do not get heard in the way they should be in corporate environments. So it helps if someone senior or well-established amplifies ideas of junior people and women.

Structural ideas

If you are in charge of the organisation in a structural way or if you are in leadership, these are approaches to establish structural ways to help small ideas survive:

Set up a budget for experiments: Small, no-questions-asked funding pots for early experiments, sized so a "no" from a committee is never required — Adobe's internal "Kickbox" program is a documented example (a literal box with a prepaid card and a process for a first small test). I really like the idea of a «no questions asked» small budget to buy an idea some time.

Time budgets for ideas: Time or budget that is separate from the official budget and protected and doesn't need to be justified. The classic version is «20% time for your own project» (3M, later Google), where 3M's own mythology credits it with producing the Post-it Note. Even if that were not true, it's a great idea to give people options to explore ideas without questions asked.

The Lab: A «garage» or lab space — physically distinct, deliberately informal, signaling "different rules apply here" (Google and HP both use/used this framing).

Go back to this list

I recommend to go back to both lists often. The first one, with all the «killer phrases» is important because only when we know how small idea plants are killed we can also prevent ourself and others to believe in those phrases.

The second one is important when you are, even in a tiny way, responsible for your team or organisation to thrive. Only when you start giving small idea plants a chance to grow a few inches, to test them and to bring the really interesting ones to fruition will you contribute to the future rather than protecting the status quo.

My favorite way to grow ideas

From all the approaches mentioned, by far the most promising for me is understanding what question an idea tries to answer or what need it tries to care for. Because if we know the question, we can search for many alternative ideas, rather than to just operate with one idea. It's like in my garden: When I plant 20 seeds, not all of them grow equally well. Some of them make it only to the surface, while others grow big. By creating multiple ideas based on one question, I increase the chances that one or two of these ideas have a chance to grow.

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