Are your ideas helpful or hand grenades?

Be a disruptor, not disruptive.

Ideas can he helpful or hurtful in a team.

It can be confronting having others make improvement suggestions about our work. Some colleagues are very comfortable dishing it out, so free and generous with their commentary and improvement ideas.

It can feel like an attack sometimes.

Other people find suggestions hard to hear and harder to say, with good reason. It can feel personal, deflating and hurtful to be on the receiving end of some ideas. Triggering for some (including me in the past).

More trust in your team

I was on a Communication Leadership Team a while ago. We worked closely together on projects and stuff. But we were more of a group than a team. We lacked trust and alignment.

It was tough going. Our shared goal was to modernise years of outdated communication practices and channels in a large and old fashioned business.

To move forward we had a shared agreement that we were able to challenge or critique our peers, but only constructively.

We were to be disruptors, not be disruptive.

Over time we became more measured with our suggestions, more forgiving of each other. We grew more trust and worked more as a team than as a group. A really surprising result from a simple rule.

Helpful

Disruptors deliver their criticism with an alternative idea or way of doing things. They build on existing ways with a new way, which might be better, more efficient or cheaper. They empower their peers with solutions. Disruptors are constructive: they are helpful and build trust and collaboration.

Then there is the flipside.

Hurtful

When criticism is delivered without a suggestion it feels purely disruptive. This type of criticism sends the message that the person or team is not doing a good job. These moments can be harmful and hurtful. They don’t empower. They are disruptive: like throwing a hand grenade. They impact morale, trust and reduce psychological safety in the team.

These three things:

Next time you want to make a suggestion, try asking yourself these three questions first:
Q: How does my suggestion build on the existing way?
Q: What value does my criticism bring (faster, safer).
Q: What is the most helpful way to have this conversation (in-private, group setting).