During a practice recently one of my clients gave me “the look.” I asked him to tell me what he was thinking, what was on his mind. He said it was nothing. He had an idea, he continued, but it was “half baked.”
I stopped the practice and asked him to tell his team the idea. The team came alive. His idea was a good one and one that had been on their minds as well. I asked the team to play back to their leader what they had heard and after a couple rinses both sides agreed that the idea was clear and that it felt like 90% bakeage. This is almost always the way it is. We keep marinating on an idea upstairs but we’re too afraid to expose it to air. We hold these ideas in the storage tanks that are our minds. And then we wait. We wait for clarity to come without the help of another. We wait, oftentimes, out of fear.
Great ideas need exposure to “rise,” if you will. They need to be retrieved from the archives of our mind, come out of our mouths and taste some fresh air. Once exposed to pure oxygen and to our team members, these ideas become clearer and clearer and before you know it, we are ACTING.
Ideas become more fluent as you take them from the mind, out the mouth, into fresh air, with like or diverse minds, and clarify the last 10%. These fluent ideas turn into productive ACTION. PA is what every individual, team, and leader wants.
Practice opening your mouth and sharing your ideas. Share the ones that feel like they’re half baked and kinda silly. Share the ones that you most fear looking foolish by sharing. Chances are your team has something similar on their mind.
Funny, huh…
BUILT TO LEAD 
This blog is a terrific antidote to so many things:
. . .to ANXIETY. Almost everyone who is overwhelmed is UNDER ENGAGED. Talking through half-baked ideas, concerns, etc. is the key to unstopping the dam of pressure and getting back into that cool sense of “flow”.
. . .to PRIDE. True humility can only be found in community, and it’s by those willing to BE vitally part of one. When I’m waiting to share until I have everything figured out, it’s really a form of arrogance that communicates louder than the words that aren’t spoken that I won’t let anyone help me.
. . .to STAGNANCY. Vital cultures thrive on the principles of improv, of “anding”, of drawing out and building on the synergies of each other’s strengths and gifts. No wonder. Less anxiety and less pride leads to a lot more truth-telling, risk-taking, real confidence and group ownership.
This blog gets at the heart of what “Together We Improve” is all about. It’s what transforms mules into mustangs. And it’s the highway to becoming ONE.