Suggesting Ideas Start Collaboration, Telling Ideas Ends Conversations
Becoming More Approachable Series
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Last week, we discussed how responding to our teams' ideas with "Why." could be detrimental to our approachability; instead, we should explain that we do not understand the reasoning to initiate a collaborative conversation. Today, we will discuss how we can further build our approachability through sharing our ideas as suggestions.
As a former ecommerce category manager, my job was to increase sales by leading a team of account managers. One lever in increasing sales is increasing the variety of the items being sold, also known as assortment. I initially tried to directly tell my team to ask our third party sellers to expand their assortment. This proved to be ineffective, as only a few team members were able to convince sellers to expand their assortment. I started to wonder what was the reason. So, the next meeting, I decided to suggest that we expand assortment and asked for their thoughts. And suddenly, they brought up a myriad of problems that were associated with asking sellers to expand their assortment. For example, what if the sellers purchased items that did not sell - they would have non-moving inventory. By suggesting instead of telling, we were able to unearth a plethora of problems that we could begin solving piece by piece.
Suggestions are the start of a collaborative solution. After we have placed our idea on the table, we need to request the opinions of others so that they may build on our ideas. Upon hearing their opinions, we should synthesize the feedback. If our opinions are aligned, we have found a collaborative solution. On the other hand, if our opinions are not aligned, we circle back to provide another suggestion with the newfound knowledge of the opinions of others.
Provide Suggestion
As mentioned earlier, directing or telling someone an idea often forces the conversation to be one sided. Whereas, a suggestion is an idea that we want to promote, while also inviting an opportunity for others to share their thoughts. Word choice is critical in conveying our ideas as suggestions, as opposed to directions.
The phrasing for directing or telling someone an idea often comes off as an order. For example, "Go [expand assortment]" or "Find a way to [expand assortment]", where [expand assortment] can be swapped out with an idea of choice
The phrasing for a suggestion often leads with a mold-able thought "I think that we should [expand assortment]". To make it softer and even more inviting for collaboration, we can lay out a thought and its connection to the team's overall goals without claiming that it is our idea or claiming that we thought of it. For example, "[Expanding assortment] would be a good way to increase sales."
Request Opinion
After we have invited a response by providing a suggestion, we can directly ask for their opinion. To start off, we should ask for their general opinion to receive their top of mind alignments or top of mind issues with our idea. After getting their top of mind opinions, we can dive deeper and ask for opinions in specific areas where we believe that we are missing context.
After we have provided our suggestion, the complete phrasing should be "[Expanding assortment] would be a good way to increase sales. What do you think?" "What do you think?" serves as our question to get their top of mind opinion. After they have provided their top of mind opinion, we can dive deeper by asking about specific facets, such as "What problems could come up?" or "How can we improve the idea?"
Synthesize Feedback
By listening to their feedback and making logical adjustments to take the best path forward, we are incorporating their ideas into ours. If the ideas are aligned, we have found a collaborative solution. If the ideas are not aligned, we should propose a newly synthesized suggestion based on their feedback. By soliciting their opinions, in addition to getting potential improvement points on our idea, we are also getting their buy-in to the solution. Psychologically, when individuals contribute towards a solution they will be more inclined to see it though and executing the proposed solution.
Our goal is to learn what issues exist and concurrently to demonstrate that we have heard their opinion. This might sound like this, "I am hearing that sellers do not want to expand their assortment, because they are concerned their items will not sell." At this point, we have not arrived at a collaborative solution yet, so we need to dig deeper here. "What would ease their worries?" In the actual case described, we arrived at the following collaborative solution: creating a marketing campaign for new items would be a strong enough incentive to coerce sellers to expand their assortment.
Closing Remarks
By providing suggestions, requesting opinons, and synthesizing feedback, we are creating an environment that is collaboartive. By accepting and integrating the ideas of others, we are becoming more approachable. An approachable manager is able to collect ideas from the whole team, whereas directive managers can only rely on their own ideas, which in the long run will not scale effectively, because other team team members will not develop their problem solving skills.
Also, in case you missed it, The Morale Mindset Podcast, which has 10 minute episodes that discuss leveraging people dynamics to drive results, is now live on Spotify, Apple, and Google!
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