When Ludicrous becomes Scandalous

I like to have fun with the words ludicrous and scandalous. By personal definitions are as follows:

Ludicrous; We’ve all been there… Billy always has the crazy ideas. Often, they’re actually worth looking into and determining if they have any substance. However, with any good brainstorming there are the occasional ludicrous ideas. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the occasional ludicrous idea, just don’t spend resources on it.

Scandalous; Is spending time and money on that ludicrous idea…!

Five things to avoid living in a scandalous environment:

1. Do team members have the authority to question and challenge others ideas? Encourage healthy debate and critical examination of all ideas. Even the CEO or Boards recommendations.
2. Establish cross functional teams. Establish diversity. This eliminates bias thinking.
3. As leaders often, our thoughts can be taken as directives. During, meetings and brainstorming session keep opinions to yourself and let the team work through the thought process before offering any suggestions.
4. At all brainstorming session, identify one person to be the devil’s advocate. Their role is to challenge 100% of the ideas and force the team look at the suggestions from the opposite direction.
5. When possible socialize the top two or three idea contenders with outside influencers to check for reasonableness.

Don’t be Scandalous!