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The Importance of Follow-Up - Part 7

And suppose your idea is accepted and put into practice—either into actual use or into a development stage. What do you do then?

This is where many idea men fail on the following through, and where many ideas fail to hold their own against all the de­structive forces that can cut down their effectiveness and even kill them. If it is your idea, don't stop once it is sold—continue to follow through even if you can only do so from the sidelines.

Keep open-minded about improvements. It is one thing to resist changes in your idea that may undermine and weaken it. It is quite another to think that you are the only person who understands the idea sufficiently well to improve or "polish" it. Look for any opportunity to improve an idea yourself, and at least listen with an open mind to suggestions from others.

Know when to fight—and when not to. If your idea is really important and really creative, there is probably a "heart" to it that should not be changed. But surrounding that heart will be dozens of details that can be changed in hundreds of ways without hurting the main idea. You can always concede on these details so long as it won't hurt the big idea. It takes judgment and a sense of timing to know when to fight and when not to. But too much fighting at the wrong time or about the wrong thing has resulted in the loss of many worthwhile ideas.

Keep people sold. This is important as your idea passes from the stage of theory into that of application. Remember that your management probably felt they were taking a chance, even if they felt the odds were in favor of success, when they approved your idea. So keep them sold: report any and all successes; stay enthusi­astic yourself; try to communicate that enthusiasm to your boss, to his boss, all the way up the line. Keep everyone firmly behind your idea until it takes over itself by demonstrating success.

Get other departments in on your idea. This will, to a large extent, depend on the particular idea. But don't hesitate to let someone else in on it or ask for someone else's help in making your idea succeed. You may get some valuable cross-fertilization of thinking that can "beef up" your original idea immensely.

Keep adding to your idea. If, for example, it is a packaging idea for one product, show how the same basic concepts can be adapted to other packages in your line, or to the shipping con­tainer, or to the point-of-sale display piece. If it is for a new type of product, look for possible related products or for other possible uses in addition to the original one. If it is an idea for a depart­mental reorganization, try to carry the basic principles down into individual operating sections, or on up into division operations to improve efficiency as a whole. Use your original idea as a seed for spreading the benefits in as many different directions as you can.

Expect to be sniped at. Remember that it is always easier to see the 10 per cent bad in an idea than the 90 per cent good. So you can expect any idea—particularly a really bold or new one—to be sniped at. In this respect, you should develop into your own best sniper. You should, of course, be the sharpest sniper of all because you will know more about your idea and its weaknesses than anyone else. So keep looking for flaws yourself. And listen to other people's suggestions on flaws. And when they suggest, don't damn in defending. Remember, they may be right and you may have to make a change. Leave yourself the opening to make it gracefully.

Know when to quit. It often happens that a promising idea just will not prove out when put into practice. No matter what the creator does in the way of refining, improving, combining, or otherwise strengthening the idea, it just won't work. The thing for the creator to do then is to drop it. Quit it completely, no matter how much it hurts. And then go on to another idea. And the creator should be the first to know that his idea is no good. He should be the person to "blow the whistle on it." It will be far better for you in the long run to get the reputation of being a person with the courage to admit you were wrong, than to be branded a "stubborn damn fool who doesn't know a good idea from a bad one!"

Related terms include strategic planning and business organizations.