Uh, I don’t get it!

If you are allergic to eye rolls, abrupt subject changes, crickets and that familiar sucking sound as all the air leaves the room, welcome to “outside the box and into the grinder.”

Pitching a new idea to someone who might be a graduate of M.I.T.’s School of Mechanical Thinking can be terrifying. Really creative ideas can be met with derision, or worse, when not unveiled in the right atmosphere. And there really is no right atmosphere. I takes guts and confidence. Yeah, courage.

I never do a cold opening. I leave that to SNL.When I have an idea that’s really out of the mainstream, I meet with the attendees of my presentation separately to get their thoughts. When I do present it to the group, they understand immediately where I’m heading … and they have some skin in the game! Good to have friends in the room when the knives come out.

Everyone talks about ideation, innovation, teamwork and that outside the box thing, but it can get scarce in a politically and competitively charged room.

Most new ideas take a while to settle in and that’s where it pays not only to be creative but courageous as well.

Incoming!