Getting Things Done

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THE ART OF GETTING THINGS DONE | PART ONE
When the "Good Idea" Is a Bad Idea
Have you ever heard a well-intentioned manager start a meeting
with the question, "OK, so who's got a good idea about this?"
What is the assumption here? Before any evaluation of
what's a "good idea" can be trusted, the purpose must
be clear, the vision must be well defined, and all the
relevant data must have been collected (brain-
stormed) and analyzed (organized). "What's a good
idea?" is a good question, but only when you're about
80 percent of the way through your thinking! Start-
ing there would probably blow anyone's creative
mental fuses.
Trying to approach any situation from a perspective that is not
the natural way your mind operates will be difficult. People do it all
the time, but it almost always engenders a lack of clarity and
increased stress. In interactions with others, it opens the door for
egos, politics, and hidden agendas to take over the discussion (gen-
erally speaking, the most verbally aggressive will run the show).
And if it's just you, attempting to come up with a "good idea" before
defining your purpose, creating a vision, and collecting lots of initial
bad ideas is likely to give you a case of creative constipation.
Let's Blame Mrs. Williams
If you're like most people in our culture, the only formal training
you've ever had in planning and organizing proactively was in the
fourth or fifth grade. And even if that wasn't the only education
you've had in this area, it was probably the most emotionally
intense (meaning it sank in the deepest).
Mrs. Williams, my fourth-grade teacher, had to
teach us about organizing our thinking (it was in her
lesson plans). We were going to learn to write reports.
But in order to write a well-organized, successful
report, what did we have to write first? That's right—
an outline!
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If you're waiting to
have a good idea
before you have any
ideas, you won't
have many ideas.
Outlines were easy,
as long as you
wrote the report
first.

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