How to Respond Positively and Make Suggestions when someone gives Stupid Ideas

It’s #wisdomwendesdays and it’s time to share something I learned.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone presents you with an idea, and you just don’t know whether you’re going to laugh or cry at how dumb or stupid the idea is?

Yeah, we’ve all had that.

And our challenge, as leaders, is how to respond to that in a way that will not be demeaning to the people, so they will not be discouraged from coming up with other, hopefully better, ideas.

There’s a simple 3-step method I would like to share with you called the LCS technique.

LCS stands for Like, Concern, Suggest

How it works is that when someone gives an idea which you disagree with, you respond as follows:

1. Like – First of all, say something to acknowledge, agree, or like the idea. e.g. “I like what you’re thinking. I think you’re on to something.”
2. Concern – Now you can say what you don’t like about the idea. e.g. “My only concern is that it might be detrimental to the customer downstream.“
3. Suggest – Finally, you can say what you think should be the right approach, or perhaps even build on the initial suggestion. e.g. “May I suggest that we do this instead?” or “Do you think it makes sense to do this instead?”

You’ll find that this will be super useful during brainstorming and ideation sessions as instead of exchanging objections, people will start building on each other’s ideas.

Did you find this useful? Share it! Your colleagues will thank you for it.