At work, it can sometimes be hard to share ideas that you have. Particularly if you don’t feel like you’re well respected at work or that you don’t have people who will listen to you, sharing ideas that you have can feel intimidating. But with the right preparation and the right strategy in place, you can bring up your ideas to your boss or others within your organization with the confidence that your good ideas will be heard.
To help you in doing this, here are three tips for bringing up new ideas at work.
Know Your Audience
One of the first things that you should think about when you’re getting ready for sharing your big ideas with people at work is to know who your audience is. By understanding who you’re going to be presenting your ideas to and what they value within your organization, you can better cater to this specific group of people.
For example, if your idea is about more effective freight handling, you’ll want to make sure that you’re sharing your idea with the people in charge of operations and the supply chain. And since you’re going to be speaking with people who are well versed in this area of the business, you’ll want to learn what their pain points are and what they need to know in order to get behind an idea and actually put it into practice. With this information, you should be able to give a very compelling argument as to why your new idea is sound.
Come With Your Research Ready
In addition to having a great idea and a great argument, you’ll need to have proof that what you’re proposing could actually work and work well for your organization. And for the decision makers to buy into what you’re saying, you’re likely going to need to show them some research.
Some of the best research that you can show the higher-ups is evidence from times past where ideas like yours have been successful. So whatever your idea is based on, you should try to find people who’ve executed on a similar idea and found it to work in their favor. This will help your bosses feel like there’s less risk involved in hearing and accepting your idea.
Practice For Clear Communication
While it can be scary to bring up new big ideas to the people in charge of your organization, if you’re able to speak to them with confidence, this can help you feel empowered and encourage them to really pay attention to what you’re saying.
To help you find this confidence, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve practiced clearly communicating your ideas to someone else before you meet with your bosses. By doing this, you can work through any hiccups that might have come up, and you can better be prepared for questions and other things that might derail your presentation.
If you have new ideas that you want to bring up at work, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you learn how this can best be done successfully.