Handling Suggestions

I'm the sort of person who always has ideas about how things could be better—or at least different. Most of them I can't do anything about, except to pass them along to someone else in a position to consider them.

On the flip side, as a technical writer, many of the best suggestions for how to improve the work I'm doing come from other people. I lose sleep at night sometimes thinking about the suggestions that go unsaid, the great ideas that never make it to my inbox.

So I think the way we handle the suggestions we do receive is tremendously important. And from what I've seen, as someone who makes a lot of suggestions, most people don't know how to handle them.

Think of it from the perspective of someone offering a suggestion. When you pass along a suggestion to someone (something you don't have to do, and there are always other things you could be doing), what do you want?

• Validation – the sense that your idea wasn't completely silly
• Appreciation – a little thank you or some recognition that you didn't have to take the time to articulate the idea and pass it along
• A clear hand off – the feeling that you've done your duty and got the idea into the right hands so you can forget about it and get back to your own work

What does it take, then, to reward someone for passing along their suggestion and to encourage them to do so again? Just a simple thank you with some indication that the idea's worth considering and that you will in fact give it consideration. "Thanks Bob, what a great idea! I'll bring that up at the next team meeting."

Simple, right? But hardly anyone does this. Some people respond quickly with a detailed explanation of why the idea won't work. Ouch! If the explanation's correct, you've basically just told the person their idea sucked and thanks for wasting your time. But if the explanation's not correct, and you've missed the point of the suggestion by dismissing it too quickly, then the other person will either get drawn into a debate about the merit of their idea or they'll believe that you're incompetent. In any case, you're not likely to hear from them next time.

Some people respond with detailed instructions about how these sorts of suggestions are supposed to be filed—forms to be filled out, additional information to be provided, process to be followed. Hey, wait a minute, I'm doing you a favor here and you want me to invest a bunch of extra time? Like I'm not busy? No thanks.

Some people don't respond at all, or they say "Hey great idea" but you know they don't know what to do about it. In any case you feel like you've just tossed your suggestion into a bottomless well.

Finally, some people follow up diligently but continue to involve you in the process because it was your idea. They send updates and ask if they've understood correctly and ask what you think of the result. How are you supposed to know? If you had the skills or expertise to implement the idea, why would you have passed it on in the first place?

So next time you get an unsolicited suggestion from someone, thank them for taking the time out of their schedule to pass it along, show some appreciation for it, and let them know (firmly but politely) that you'll take it from here because you've got a system for handling these sorts of ideas.

And if you don't have a system for setting aside new ideas and reviewing them regularly, you need to make one. You're missing a hell of an opportunity.