There is no such thing as “a great idea”Â
Blasphemy, I know, but hear me out. I can have a great idea and you can have a great idea, but is my idea going to be great for you, and yours great for me? (If you can follow that sentence, you’re approved to read on.)
Next time you’re at a conference, when a speaker starts presenting their “great ideas” for how to do something, notice how many people around the room are ferociously scribbling all the ideas down. This is when I get a little uncomfortable. The sharing of ideas is great ““ if I’m there, I’ll probably be scribbling the ideas down too. What concerns me is that presenters often advocate their ideas as golden rules, and what concerns me more is that many participants seem to buy what the presenters are selling.
We need to be clear that just because one person’s “great idea” was proven successful for a particular situation(s), that’s little to no indication for how it will play out for another organization. (An analogy for all you parents out there: did all those great ideas you collected for handling your first child work identically for all your children?! How about those great ideas you were offered from other parents with swears of success ““ did they all work for you? Of course not. In fact, many were probably contradictory.)
We all need to recognize that any idea we hear, no matter how successful it was in a given situation, is only a “potentially great idea” to us (a PGI, that is, because the association world needs a few more acronyms). It’s up to us to determine what the potential success of that idea will be in our particular situation.
Hmmm, do you think ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership will rename their conference “Potentially Great Ideas Conference”Â? Okay, maybe not.
Now, go forth and collect all the ideas you can, but scrutinize them well to find your gems.
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