If we are successful in generating an idea and then we actually evaluate and we pick a good one, now what? Well, right. I have to pitch it to somebody, right? Someone else. Yeah, right, another person. So, we have to communicate about new ideas to other people so that they get everybody as excited about them as we do. Right. And that's easy, right? Yeah, sure. The theme here in this course is nothing is as easy as it looks. So, we're going to continue with the challenges of idea pitching. Right. How do we pitch it so other people get excited. Right. Cool. So, many innovative organizations actively encourage employees to pitch new ideas, but we can't assume that people are going to be comfortable with idea of pitches, right? They might actually be scared. And so, why might they be scared of pitching ideas and what are some concerns that come up? It's risky. If I share an idea, people might not support my idea and then that comes back on me. Yeah. It could make you look incompetent or unprepared. Worse than I already I'm Right. So. Exactly. There are a lot of potential threats involved in pitching a new idea. Maybe I'm not so dedicated to what the group is doing and I have a deviant idea, and so that's a problem. Right. So, the more creative the idea is the more likely it is to overturn what people are already doing, and that could create conflict, it could make your supervisor look bad if it's a better idea than the one that was suggested by them first. So, there are lots of reasons to remain silent. And we I think a lot of rationalizations that we use to talk ourselves out of speaking up like we better gather more data. That's good. Which could be endless. You could gather data endlessly. Forever. You need a committee. Right. And if my boss doesn't like it, am I going to go around my boss? And that's threatening. And even peers can be threatening because they can take your idea potentially or they could dislike it only because it's better than the idea they had. And so, you're a competitive threat, right? Yeah. So, even peers can sometimes be threatening even as much as your boss if not more so. Right. So it can be embarrassing, it can be threatening, and all of that adds up to, I'm going to risk my career on this? Right. I don't care that much about the idea, right? Right. So, you could encourage people to pitch but you get silence for all of these underlying concerns. And then even if you do pitch and you're like, "I'm all in, I care about this idea", and then you say something and nobody listens, nobody cares. Or everyone thinks it's a great idea but they're going to want you to do all the work involved in implementing it. So, you pitch an idea, you end up with more work. Absolutely. And so, people might rationalize that. Yeah, absolutely. And then the last one of course is fear of public speaking. Right. How do people like getting up in front of the crowd and say, "I've got something to say?" Yeah, and that's key because sometimes you lose really good ideas from people who are shy and you get too many ideas from people who are not shy but maybe should be because their ideas aren't that great. A lot of underlying fears that we have to tackle here. So, one of the first challenges is really knowing your audience. And one of the things people don't appreciate is the fact that your audience can be overloaded or you could be one of 12 pitches somebody hears, right? Right. There's way too much information, way too many ideas out there to really carefully scrutinize every single one and think through all of the implications and make a rational decision. When we're pitching something, typically, the situation I think about is I've been working on something for months or years, and I'm talking to you in 10 minutes or 15 minutes in between all the other things you're doing, and you thought about it for just this time that we're here together. Right. It's a classic elevator pitch situation. And so, there are some implications of that. One is that the audience is really going to be receptive to cues that have nothing to do with the idea itself. And so, you really have to think about how you present yourself. So, when we were overloaded, we've got, you know, "I'm in a busy environment, there are lots of things going on, and you're telling me lots of information. I can't take it all in. I fall back on heuristics." Exactly. And the heuristics are, "I don't know." He seems like a smart guy. Right. So, how do you do that? So, confidence is really key. And so, I wanted to delve into it a little bit about how to convey confidence in conversation because that's often very, very important. One of those little things you do in a conversation to single confidence. And so, one example is from a jury study in which they actually studied how a witness communicated information and they compared two witnesses that said the exact same thing. But the hesitant witness used a lot of "um's" and hesitations and I think maybe, right. And so, they said the exact same information, the suspect was at the bar at 7:30 AM, but I think the idea That's a tough time. Right. So, when they compared the hesitating witness to the witness that was very confident, it was a confident witness that was viewed as more credible, more believable. Their information was actually used. And so, in a pitch situation you want to convey confidence whether you have it or not. Now's you just have to fake it. And your idea could be terrible but sometimes the package sells better Confidence. Than the actual product. And so, confidence is really key. So, one barrier that we talked about obviously is just people don't have time to pay attention. But another one is that even when they pay attention there's a need jerk fear reaction that arises just because creative ideas are unusual, untested, risky, unproven. And so, a lot of questions arise. I may be the only one or the first to endorse this idea. That's scary. I could be making a bad decision, I could be investing money in something that ends up not working out. So, the newer the idea or the more different the perspective is the more likely you're going to get this fear reaction. And so, how do you overcome that? It doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel good, it seems strange, maybe I feel dumb, maybe I don't understand it. In which case I then reach for the more conventional idea because it feels safer. Your thought. Exactly. I'm okay, you're the problem. Right. So, one way to think about this is how do you create a context in which people feel safe to endorse more risky, unusual creative ideas? And one is just by managing emotions. And it sounds simple but I'm reminded of a study that was done at Yale years ago in which they asked students to process persuasive messages and they create a condition in which some of those students were processing them while eating peanuts and drinking soda. What happen is that they felt better, they had more positive emotion while they were processing these messages. And the emotions spilled over onto the message itself, and so, they are more likely to think well, this feels right. I feel good. I had experience in past emotion; therefore, it's a good idea, and these idea pitches can work that way as well. Sounds like my dissertation defense. Right. Here's the champagne, here's the chocolate. Didn't I do a great job? Yeah, right. I mean, that's exactly the point, right? Yeah, so it's probably applicable. Yeah. If I put you in a good mood, then you'll be more likely to accept my pitch. Right. Because the novelty elements won't be as scary. I'm in a good mood, it's okay. It's okay to be okay with this. And people aren't necessarily aware that their emotions aren't coming from the idea, but the'res spillover and you can capitalize on that to get your ideas through. Another challenge is though this isn't difficult enough is that people actually make attributions about you based on the ideas that you pitch. We talked about how pitching a creative idea can actually make you seem less suited for leadership position, because people view you as a quirky strange unpredictable high-risk. We may like the creative person, we may think that they're smart, but we don't necessarily want them in a leadership position. Well, in one study, we actually figured out how to shift that perspective just a little bit. And so, it turns out that there are different prototypes at leadership and the most traditional prototype, the one that comes to mind most readily is the prototypical view of leadership that involves the leader as somebody who imposes order, who upholds tradition, who sort of makes the world safe for people. In that case then, I'm likely to view the creative person as someone who is suited for that kind of role. But it turns out it's actually pretty easy to shift that view of leadership. So, for example, we ask people to think about what are the traits of a charismatic leader, rather than just a leader? And we ask them to just think about that for five minutes. So, think Steve Jobs here. And just doing that we were able to shift their view of leadership to include a view of leadership that involves not upholding tradition necessarily, but in actively promoting change. And when they had this view of the leader as being charismatic in mind, they were then more receptive to the creative person as being somebody who could fulfill that role. And so, one of the challenges then is really understanding what your audience assumes about leadership, and how you can really change their views to be more compatible with creativity. But it is possible to do it. So, there really a ton of tactics. Now that I'm thinking about it more that we can use to encourage people to say yes. Right. To an idea. So, I'm thinking of classic social influence, tactics reciprocity. Right. Right? That's a powerful norm. Huge. If I do you a favor, then you owe me. And so, maybe you don't like my crazy idea but I endorse your crazy idea at some point. And so, reminding people of that is really powerful trigger. Right. So, doing each other favors. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Yeah, sure. No, I mean it can be that simple, right? Yeah. Hey, I brought you coffee this morning. And people are really, they really underestimate the likelihood of these appeals can actually be successful. So, we're often very reluctant to use these tactics, but in fact, they work really well. Right. And what's the worst that happens, you bring them coffee and they don't say yes, right? But they probably will. Yeah. Again, this is really at the level of you're not necessarily buying into my idea, let's say you like my idea, you don't necessarily understand it, but you're doing me a favor. And until the idea pans out, that might be enough. Yeah, absolutely. But there are lots to it. So, let's say door in the face. Yeah, that one, right? Boom. So, that's appropriately names. So, you start off with your most outlandish crazy idea first knowing that it's going to be rejected. Yes. But then you follow up with a more modest but still creative idea. And the way it works is that people actually feel bad about this initial rejection, right? Right. They may feel like well, you're being reasonable, you adjusted your expectations and so I should respond in kind. So again, it's playing off this norm of reciprocity. You did me a favor by being more modest to write in your proposal, and so I should do you a favor, meet you halfway and maybe endorse your idea. Yeah. No, it makes sense. But you can also go the other the way, right? You can start up with a small request, and get some commitment and consistency going, and then build that up into a larger request. Exactly. So, the foot in the door effector. Another appropriately named tactic. And there you're playing off consistency. So, if you agree to my very, very modest proposal, and I propose an idea that's related but much more audacious and risky, it would almost be inconsistent of you to deny that idea having already endorsed the earlier one. And so, you play off of that desire to be consistent which is really powerful. No one wants to be a flip-flopper. Right. Not at least locally. Yeah, right. I think that's the idea. You've demonstrated that there's something about you that says yes to this kind of thing, and says yes to me, right? Right. So, that works. But there's also an element of just showing up. Absolutely. I mean, I got to come, talk to you and make the pitch to you. So, that there's a social relationship element to all of these things, the reciprocity, et cetera, are going to be even more powerful if you see me and have me right here to talk to and to think about. Yeah. And people are really tempted to make passive, these passive attempts at influence. So, it's a lot easier given that I may be ridiculed, the idea may be rejected, wouldn't it be less painful if I just sent you an email, right? But there is some recent research by Vanessa Bonds, which I thought was interesting. She actually compared the effectiveness of email appeals versus in-person, and the in-person appeals were 34 times more likely to be persuasive, the same appeal. And so, email is just not an effective way to pitch ideas, even though it may be tempting because you're avoiding the awkwardness of they may think it's strange, they may think it's too risky, and so forth. Yeah. Make them say no you, make them say yes to you, right? Right. That cheerful, charming person that you are. Exactly. Should have opened and give them a reason to say yes to you in person. Right. So, a part of that is just showing up. Door-in-the-face. Suggest your most outlandish idea first. Then, gradually pull back until you reach a toned-down, yet still creative compromise. Foot-in-the-door. Initially suggest moderately creative ideas. Then, gradually add on to the original idea with more and more unconventional additions. Don't be passive. Avoid pitching creative ideas in a passive manner such as email. People are 34 times more likely to respond positively to creative ideas when they are pitched in person. You'll often be in situations where people don't have all of the time and energy to fully evaluate your ideas. So, in cases like that, you really need to use social influence. So, they're not going to get the briefing book and spend hours reading it. Right. They're going to hear what you have to say and think, he seems like a pretty confident character. Right. Seems to know what he's talking about, seems authoritative. Sure. You may be one of 12 pitches they've heard in an hour. So, you have to stand out, and be different, and be persuasive, and make it easy to say yes. Yeah, absolutely. So, it's not just about fully thinking through everything, it's also about nudging. It's about the package. Yes, it's about the package. Exactly.
