Does your idea velocity move faster than clients are able to process what you have to say?
Clients need mental breathing room, especially when dealing with complex problems. Consider that moving forward, there really are no simple issues. Everything and everyone is interconnected to everything and everyone else. As a result, clients wrestle with the single idea that yesterday’s linear thinking will not catalyze today’s and tomorrow’s successes. That singular concept is your greatest competition and barrier.
Consequently, the velocity of your delivered ideas, spoken words, images, and written text hits that wall of complexity first. Your opportunity is discovering a crack to seep your idea through.
I get it. You have so much information to verbally share. Conversations and presentations are driven by the urge to make up for perceived lost time with real live three dimensional people. You are scripted and rehearsed: you have this! Plus, as you spew more ideas out of your brain (and mouth), your body releases adrenaline. You find yourself riding a wave of euphoria.
The more euphoric you feel, the more difficult it becomes to reduce the forward rush of your idea velocity. Do people receiving what you have to say share the same euphoric feeling? Check their facial expressions and their body language. Are you catalyzing them forward or shocking them into inaction?
Overall, clients (and people in general) process information in smaller bytes than you currently deliver. In fact, several minutes into a shared dialogue or presentation, people are easily overwhelmed. They become stuck interpreting concepts they find thought-provoking. The more your ideas are unfamiliar, novel and innovative, the more brain power clients expend on processing this information.
My advice? Align the outcomes you want to achieve with the amount of thought required for clients to reach the same conclusions. Especially when you present cross-functionally, across traditional organizational value silos, idea velocity is inconsistent. Does your own impatience to close the deal, sell the solution, push the project forward, create an opportunity for push-back instead of buy-in?
Provide spaces for idea digestion: for both you as well as clients. Less is actually more. Slow the pace and cadence of your idea velocity. Create smaller information parcels to process: together. Get everyone to where they really need to go. One millimeter at a time: today, tomorrow and moving forward. That is the fastest velocity you need to achieve.
I catalyze cross-functional, collaborative, profitable, and sustainable solutions across value silos. | Professional Innovation | Cross Functional Leadership | Complex Problem Solving | Speaker, Consultant, Coach |
- Need a collaboration partner to catalyze better project outcomes? Searching for a speaker focused on doing the smallest things with the biggest impact to get you towards what is new and next? Then engage me to present a One Millimeter Mindset ™ program! Delivered virtually or in-person.
Babette Ten Haken’s One Millimeter Mindset™ programs catalyze people who solve problems differently to collaborate more successfully across traditional value silos. Become more professionally visible, cross-functionally relevant, and strategically valuable. Co-create and implement innovative and robust business outcomes together. Babette is a business-oriented STEM professional, qualitative Voice of the Customer facilitator, PMI-certified Wicked Problem Solver, Duke Corporate Education licensed Strategic Agility practitioner, and Six Sigma Green Belt (Quality). Babette is a member of SHRM, PMI, the National Speakers Association (NSA). Her playbook of cross-functional collaboration, Do YOU Mean Business? is available in soft cover and digital formats on Amazon.com. Contact Babette here. Image source: Adobe Stock.
Leave a Reply