You’re a human-centered leader working to create a courageous, speak-up culture filled with psychological safety. A culture where employees feel invited and encouraged to speak up and share their ideas and express their concerns.

Even if you’re a rock star human-centered leader, doing all the right things to encourage micro-innovation and problem solving, it’s also likely that you have a few team members who still have best practices and ideas they’re holding back.

How to Include Your Reluctant Employees in Your Speak-Up Culture

Start by getting underneath their reluctance to speak up. People choose to hold back their ideas for a variety of reasons.

It could be they are an introverted, silent ponderous types who could use some extra time to formulate their ideas before sharing.

Or, it could be they’ve worked for a toxic leader before and the scar tissue is just too thick. It feels safer to stay silent for these silent wounded types.

Of course, sometimes in a speak-up culture, you can have too many ideas coming from an idea grenadier or a schmoozer who just wants people to like him and his ideas, with no intention of following through.

In this article, we share ideas for helping all your people think more critically so they contribute more fully as you build a speak-up culture.

Silent Ponderous

Help your silent ponderous employees bring you better ideas

Your silent ponderous types are a great place to start. These are folks with great ideas, who might appear to be disengaged, or even frustrated by the wacky ideas of others—but who still hold back.

To draw out the great value silent ponderous people can contribute to your speak-up culture, start by giving them time to think.

For some meetings, this means giving them the main topic a day or two in advance and asking them to think about it. In some settings having everyone write their ideas first will give them time to process.

Another strategy is to clarify that you’re not asking for a 100% accurate answer.

When you ask them for their best thinking at the moment or a range of ideas, it gives them permission to explore, rather than commit to something they haven’t thought through yet.

Silent Wounded

Your silent wounded need encouragement to participate in a courageous culture

Working with silent wounded in your culture can be a bit heartbreaking. You know they have good ideas, but psychological safety is low and fear is high.

They don’t trust you—and with good reason.

It’s not that you’ve done anything wrong. It’s the three managers who came before you who abused their trust, told them they weren’t hired to think, stole their idea, and then took credit for it. Now you have the same title and, fairly or not, all the negative baggage that comes with it.

Your job is to rebuild their trust. This will take time, but once you’ve built that trust, these team members are often very loyal. Start small.

Ask a courageous question and receive the answers graciously and with gratitude. Build up to deeper questions and focus on responding well.

Celebrate people, generously give credit, then ask for more problem solving and ideas to better serve your customers.

Idea Grenadiers

Of course, when building a speak-up culture, it’s possible to have so many ideas flying around that very little gets done.

Build a courageous culture by helping your idea grenadiers refine their ideas

Some people are idea machines–their brain works overtime to see the possibilities in every situation. Nearly every team is better off with someone who can creatively look at what’s happening and see opportunities to improve or transform.

The challenge comes when the idea-person tosses all their ideas in your lap, and wants you to do them, but won’t do the work. These are the idea-grenadiers—tossing their ideas like grenades and then running in the other direction.

When you’re working with someone like this as you build a speak-up culture, it helps to have a direct conversation that calls them back to what matters most and asks them to engage. For example:

“I’ve noticed that in the past month you come to me with four different ideas about how we should improve security, revamp the training program, change our workforce management, and reorganize product management. There is merit in your ideas—and we can’t pursue all of them right now. Which of them do you think would help achieve our #1 strategic priority? Is that a project you’d be willing to help with?”  (See Also: Too Many Ideas: How to Help Keep Your Team Focused, and Creative).

Schmoozers

Encourage your schmoozers to build the confidence needed for execution

Most organizations have a schmoozer—everyone likes them and they talk a great game, but when it comes time to get things done, somehow, they never implement that plan that sounded so amazing when they presented it.

The challenge is that they undermine trust in your speak-up culture. Ideas they share lack credibility and they’re less likely to be entrusted with good ideas because they won’t implement them.

The best strategy with schmoozers is to ignore the charm and focus on the results. Healthy accountability conversations that help them raise their game will help restore their credibility. When you talk with them, be ready for an elegantly worded explanation for why they didn’t get it done. If it happens again, you need to escalate the conversation.

For example: “This is the third time we’ve had this conversation. Your credibility is at stake. What you said sounded wonderful, but if you can’t implement it, your team can’t rely on you and neither can I. What can we do to get this on track and completed?”

Change Resistors

Help your change resistors connect to a more meaningful “why”

Your change resistors aren’t necessarily lazy, stuck, negative, or even “resistant.” Rather, they’re normal. Resisting change actually makes a lot of sense.

After all, if what you did yesterday worked—it got you through the day alive, fed, and healthy—why spend energy to do something differently? That’s a waste of time—unless there’s a good reason. To address this, start with the problem, not the solution.

When you start with the solution, you deprive your team of the understanding and connection that drove you to action.

The post Speak-up Culture: How to Encourage More (and Better) Ideas appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

If you’re like many leaders with whom we’ve shared our new book Courageous Cultures, you’re mentally indexing your team and wondering if they’re capable of micro-innovations, problem-solving, and advocating for your customer. You want them to contribute, but they’re reluctant or clumsy.

You might be thinking about the “idea grenadiers” who present countless ideas, none of them quite relevant to your business. Or maybe you worry about the people who seem to have a “tell me what to do” attitude. Can they make it in a Courageous Culture?

Some leaders look at their people, shake their heads, and say, “They can’t get there from here.”

Sometimes that’s true. But often it isn’t. If you’re serious about building a true Courageous Culture before encouraging them to opt-out and find another job, we invite you to pause and think about how you can adapt your strategy for more opt-ins to help them engage and contribute.

How to Help All Your Employees Contribute

Let’s look at several types of people who are reluctant to share their ideas or present other challenges for leaders working to get more creative contributions from their teams.

IDEA GRENADIERS

Some people are idea machines—their brains work overtime to see the possibilities in every situation. Nearly every team is better off with someone who can creatively look at what’s happening and see opportunities to improve or transform. The challenge comes when the idea person starts tossing all his ideas in your lap, wants you to do them, but won’t do the work. These are the “idea grenadiers”—tossing ideas like grenades and then running the other direction.

When you’re working with people like this, it helps to have a direct conversation that calls them back to what matters most and asks them to engage. For example:

I’ve noticed that in the past month you come to me with four different ideas about how we should improve security, revamp the training program, change our workforce management, and reorganize product management. There is merit in your ideas—and we can’t pursue all of them right now. Which of them do you think would help achieve our number one strategic priority? Is that a project you’d be willing to help with?

SILENT WOUNDED

They don’t trust you—and with good reason. It’s not that you’ve done anything wrong. The three managers they had before this job abused their trust, told them they weren’t hired to think, stole their idea, then took credit for it. Now you have the same title and, fairly or not, all the baggage that comes with it.

Your number one leadership job with the silent wounded is to rebuild their trust. This will take time, but once you’ve built that trust, these team members are often very loyal. Start small. Ask an almost-courageous question and receive the answers graciously, with gratitude. Build up to deeper questions and respond with regard as the answers are more vulnerable. Celebrate people, generously give credit, then ask for more problem solving and ideas to better serve your customers.

OXYGEN SUCKERS

And then there are the folks who suck all the air out of the room. They often talk so much, so loud, or so vehemently that others don’t have a chance to contribute. Oxygen suckers can spark drama that derails a healthy conversation and wastes time on tangents. Oxygen suckers often lack self-awareness and don’t recognize how their behavior affects others. It’s up to you to facilitate in a way that manages everyone’s time to speak.

To help your oxygen suckers, start with a direct conversation. Privately explain that you are going to run meetings differently and that your goal is to make sure everyone participates equitably. Be specific about how you’ll do this. For example: “In some cases, I will time people’s comments to ensure everyone gets a chance to speak. I may ask you to speak after I’ve asked some of the quieter team members for their perspective.”

JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DOERS

Often people who want to be told what to do feel comfort in just following directions because they know that made them successful in the past. Through much of school and in many organizations, you can get along quite well by just following instructions. Often, they were hired for this same characteristic. The challenge for these people is the same as for organizations everywhere: the world is changing and computers are far more efficient at being told what to do.

For this group, there are three steps you can take. First, discuss the changing nature of work and what it will take for your business to thrive. Next, reframe what success looks like for their role. In effect, you are still answering their need to “be told what to do” but in a way that asks them to consider the opportunities and problems facing the organization. Finally, equip them with the ability to contribute ideas.

40 percent of people surveyed in our research said they don’t feel confident to share their ideas and 45 percent say they haven’t been trained to think critically or solve problems. These are both common challenges shared by just-tell-me-what-to-do-ers. Here’s one of our favorite techniques to address both challenges.

Help them Share an IDEA

If you want better ideas, help your employees know what differentiates a good IDEA by giving them a few criteria to follow. When they can think through these elements, their idea has a better chance of being used and making a difference.

click image to download full size PDF of the IDEA Model

I—Interesting. Why is this idea interesting? What strategic problem does it solve? How will results be made better by this idea (customer experience, employee retention, efficiency)?

D—Doable. Is this idea something we could actually do? How would we make it happen? What would make it easier or more difficult?

E—Engaging. Who would we need to engage to make this happen? Why should they support it? Where are we most likely to meet resistance?

A—Actions. What are the most important actions needed to try this? How would we start?

With all of these challenging types, your approach and the conversations give them a chance to participate in a Courageous Culture.

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