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:
- People are prone to find themselves in the clutch of their own ideas.
- It is much harder than it used to be to bulldoze your ideas through other people.
- Better solutions are required to succeed in the 21st Century.
The 1st Action steps are:
- Self-monitor...understand the extent of the clutch your ideas have on you, then impose limits on that clutch.
- Self-regulate...be at least a little bit more open to other people's ideas.
- Allow your thinking to be more creative...for example, take a lesson from Edward de Bono's 'Six Thinking Hats'.