People are fond of their own ideas.

As a rule, the attachment is strong: I like my ideas and you like your ideas.

That`s the way normal people feel and think. And, those normal feelings and thoughts influence people's behaviour.

When you come up with an idea, say a solution to a problem, you tend to like your idea better than alternative ideas presented by other people. Your idea is your invention, your 'brain child'.

Your ideas clutch you. 

If you do not self-monitor and self-regulate then you can find yourself held firmly in the clutches of your own ideas.

While the clutch of ideas can lead to great innovations and inventions, more often than not, it also adds a repulsive flavour to your personality. Of course, that's not a good thing. A repulsive personality is not a good thing because it reduces your ability to gain the cooperation of other people...which is necessary for your success.

A magnetic personality is a good thing.

So, no matter how terrific your ideas are you must self-monitor and self-regulate their delivery.

Some say you should use pre-thought-out series of questions, designed to trick or manoeuvre other people so they come to the conclusions you desire. Socrates used those techniques. That was over 2400 years ago. It is clear, this in-the-Clutch-of-Ideas problem has been around for quite some time. It is part of the human condition. 

Other people take advantage of various forms of power to cause people to accept their ideas. This worked really well for millennia, however, it is becoming increasingly less effective....for a number of reasons beyond the scope of this article.

The points are:

1. People are prone to find themselves in the clutch of their own ideas.
2. It is much harder than it used to be to bulldoze your ideas through other people.
3. Better solutions are required to succeed in the 21st Century.

When babies learn how to walk they make all kinds of mistakes.

I don't remember making mistakes when I learned how to walk but I do remember our boys making walking-mistakes when they were about a year old. And, I know this is common because I have seen every one of my friends' and relatives' babies do it.

Sometimes babies' little legs give out and they fall straight down, onto their little behinds. Sometimes they trip over the smallest of obstacles. Sometimes their little feet just slip right out from under them...and down they go. Sometimes their little hands cling to things like tables, they walk a bit while they are holding on then fall down as soon as they let go of the tables.

Babies fall down a lot.

And while that is going on people applaud them...especially parents and grandparents and other close relatives. They don't mind it at all when babies make all those baby-step mistakes. In fact, many of them seem to derive great joy from these experiences. Often, people carry on in celebration of the failed baby steps...encouraging all the babies to keep on taking more and more baby steps.

I suspect this is a world-wide phenomenon...a baby-step pandemic.

Why?

Why do people put up with let alone derive great joy out of all these baby-step errors?

Perhaps, the answer lies in a 200 year old quote from William Drayton, American politician and author:

"Change starts when someone sees the next step."

Maybe people see the baby's next step?

Maybe, when people see that next step it is a fine step?

Maybe people always see a fine next step?

Maybe it doesn't matter if the baby makes a mistake...it is always a fine step?

Maybe babies, who illustrate to us just how challenging a baby step can be, help interested people see Change before it happens?