They Got It Wrong, Daddy
My youngest daughter sparked some thoughts on team management Sunday morning. She walked up to me in the dress she picked out and said, “They got it wrong, Daddy.”
Apparently after careful consideration, she intentionally put the dress on backwards. In her 8-year-old wisdom and opinion, she felt the dress looked better that way. It didn’t matter to her that a well-known brand, its century of experience, its bevy of educated designers and its well-established manufacturing processes clearly marked the back of the dress with the fancy tag now residing under her chin. She tried the dress on backwards, liked the result and came to me with her idea.
Can your team confidently come to you with your product on backwards in an off-label application that’s obviously not the way we do it around here? How would you respond if they did?
I like creative ideas. I encourage disruptive brainstorming. I’d rather back a crazy idea down to a brilliant idea than try to process-build up to one.
But do you, the leader, allow it? Have you given your team permission to generate wild ideas? Are you willing to consider them?
An open-door policy does little good with a closed mind sitting at the desk.
My daughter and I carefully considered her idea. We looked at how the dress fit, how it felt when she sat down and how the bows tied. After testing her idea, we agreed that the dress worked best with the tag in the back.
But, with what she knows now about testing her opinion, if I hear “They got it wrong, Daddy” again, I bet she walks out the front door wearing her dress backwards.
