Pitch Your Idea

Author: Dustin Crossland

01-31-2023

You’re sitting in a meeting, and you get an idea. You know it’s not fully fleshed out, but you know it could potentially be worth discussing. Do you say it out loud or leave it in the recesses of your brain?

My personal preference: SAY IT

Often, we don’t opt to put an idea out there for the sake of our ego. We don’t want the feeling that we’re wrong or incompetent if it turns out to be a bad idea, so we sit on the idea and usually end up forgetting about it.

I would argue that you should put your ideas out there for peer review in a meeting, barring when you know it’s a truly awful idea. Even if it isn’t your best idea, any good team will hear it and respond to it without calling you an idiot in the process. Most of the time, however, you will at the very least spark other ideas in the group that better the organization. Or, best case scenario, you had it right from the beginning, and everyone is on board. Maybe it leads to game-changing innovation, or maybe it doesn’t, but Wayne Gretzky was right when he said you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Understand it’s okay to be wrong

Even if you pitch an idea that wasn’t the best, I would argue that you can learn a lot from hearing others present the counterarguments. You discover, or sometimes re-discover, ways that you can better flesh out other ideas in the future, allowing your thinking to evolve. Remarkably successful hedge fund owner Ray Dalio claims “evolution is the single greatest force in the universe”, and I tend to agree. Put the idea out there > get feedback > evolve your thinking.

What if you are on the other side of the idea?

If you are the one hearing the idea, and maybe you don’t think it’s a great one, do your teammate a solid and let them know. Don’t let group-think get in the way of making your organization better. Of course, don’t put them down for the idea if it’s a bad one. Always address the idea, not the person. This post was actually inspired by a meeting I had earlier today where I put an idea out there that had just come to mind and wasn’t fully fleshed out. The team I work with addressed the idea's very real pitfalls, and they did so gracefully. If your team isn’t like that, it might be time to reconsider where you work. Maybe even consider working with us!