You don’t have a solution, you have an idea
You never know until you try. That phrase encompasses the need to do everything we always talk about. Take the plunge. Get sh*t done. Leap of faith. Git ‘er done. Every folksy gumption-giving aphorism about productivity.
The same goes for your idea. Your plan. Your brilliant solution. If every solution I’ve come up with made money, I’d be paying Warren Buffett to caddie for me. A solution isn’t a solution until you’ve put it into practice and solved the problem. If the problem still exists, you don’t “have a solution”, you have an idea. Ideas are cheap.
There are two main problems with having lots of ideas and no real solutions.
One: Ideas are rarely, if ever, perfect
Welcome to the world of “agile”. This goes for any idea, not just tech. Hell, this is the basis of the scientific method. You start with a hypothesis, aka your idea, and you see if it’s right. When it’s not right (it never is, at first), you make changes to it and try it again. Do that over and over until you hate doing it, and then when you’re just about to quit you might see success.
The problem is that it takes grit and determination and a true internal need to solve the problem. Unless you’re just plain lucky and you solve it by chance, you’ve got to take your idea and build something out of it. Whether that’s a product, a poem, a website, a food, a medicine, a voodoo doll, what have you.
Two: We get insanely attached to our ideas. What if they suck?
One of the biggest reasons we never achieve world-class work at work is that we are afraid to criticize one another when we need to. That stems from the fact that we are bludgeoned with “The Golden Rule” from childhood — do unto others what you would have done unto you. It’s great for things like hitting people with sticks. It’s terrible for ideas.
Great companies and organizations cultivate atmospheres of brutal honesty. They argue and debate and critique one another’s work constantly. And through that they achieve greatness. As long as the process is done with honesty and trust that everyone is rowing in the same direction, it’s a beautiful thing.
Unfortunately, people believe that they are their ideas. When they are criticized, they get defensive. They take it personally. They react badly and shut down, believing that the critic is out to get them. It’s unfortunate because like anything worth anything, you’ve got to keep refining it. Just because you’ve got an idea doesn’t mean it’s perfect — and that’s fine. That’s great. Let’s work on it together.
So what do I do?
Write down a list of ten ideas a day. Every day. Work on your idea muscles.
Then have lunch with your smartest friends every week and read them your 70 ideas. Throw away 68 of them, and the two that you have left, talk about them. If they are great then you’ve got two things to work on. If you end up throwing 70 away that’s also great — you’ve learned 70 things you don’t need to waste time on.
Learn how to give positive critique to people. “Wow, thank you so much for showing me, I can see you’ve put a lot of work into this. I think it could be even better if you did XYZ…”
