Marshall Goldsmith: Keep Your Ideas to Yourself

Keep Your Ideas to Yourself - HBR IdeaCast - Harvard Business Review  (audio, 9 min)

"Zip it!" (A scene from "Austin Powers", photo from screenrant.com)

In this short podcast, management expert, executive coach, bestselling author and blogger Marshall Goldsmith follows up on an earlier HBR blog post on the same topic.
Consider a case when someone comes to the boss with an idea. The boss likes the idea, but instead of simply saying, "Great idea!", the boss says, "That's a nice idea, but why don't you add this to it?" The quality of the idea may go up by 5%, but the person's commitment to its execution has just come down by 50%. It's no longer the employee's idea, it's the boss's idea.
Similar situations occur between team members at work, between spouses, and between parents and children. According to Goldsmith, we should be mindful about adding "too much value". Before making suggestions, ask yourself, "Is it worth it?"
In some cases, accepting things as they are is not only a Zen method, it's also an efficient way to get things done.