Ideas, Fruit Flies and a Glass of Wine

It’s fruit fly season over here.

You know the ones.

They hover around the kitchen. They appear out of nowhere. They buzz past your face when you’re trying to concentrate.

And then, after a long day, you finally pour yourself a well-deserved glass of wine, sit down, take that first sip and think, Ahhh… 

Only to discover one of those little buggers has decided your wine looks pretty good too.

Seriously?

You wave them away. They come back.

You move the glass. They find it.

You think you’ve dealt with one and somehow three more appear.

Persistent little things.

And as I was rescuing my wine from one the other day, I started thinking…

Entrepreneurs know a little something about having persistent things buzzing around their heads too.

Except sometimes, it isn’t a fruit fly.

It’s an idea.

The Ideas We Carry Around

Entrepreneurs tend to have a lot going on upstairs.

An idea for a new service.

A change you know the business needs to make.

Something that isn’t quite working with the team.

An innovative way of serving clients.

A vision for where you want the company to go next.

You can see it. Maybe not perfectly, and it’s enough that you keep coming back to it.

The problem is that nobody else can see what’s inside your head.

So the idea circles.

You think about it while driving. You make a note on your phone. You mention part of it in a meeting. You bring it up again three weeks later, assuming everyone remembers the first conversation.

Meanwhile, your team may be trying to piece together what it is you actually meant.

And that’s where communication starts to break down.

“But I Told Them…”

I’ve heard versions of this many times.

“But I told the team...”

Maybe you did.

The harder question is: Did they understand it well enough to do something with it? Even better, did you tell them you wanted them to do something with it?

There’s an important difference between sharing an idea and communicating it.

When you’ve been thinking about something for weeks or months, you have context your team doesn’t have. You’ve already worked through dozens of scenarios in your mind. You understand why it matters, where it came from and what you imagine it becoming.

Then you give someone the final 20% of that thought process and wonder why they aren’t seeing the other 80%.

They can’t.

They weren’t in your head for all those conversations you had with yourself.

An Idea Needs Somewhere to Land

This is one of the most fun things we get to do at Connect To The Core. We help entrepreneurs and leadership teams swat those metaphorical flies.

Sometimes a leader doesn’t need another person telling them what to think.

They need someone who can listen.

Someone who can ask the right questions.

Someone who can help take the thoughts, ideas and possibilities swirling around in their head and turn them into something clearer.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Why does this matter now?

What does your team need to understand?

Where might they interpret your message differently than you intended?

What needs to happen next?

Those conversations can take something abstract and give it shape.

Because once an idea has shape, you can communicate it.

Once people understand it, they can contribute to it.

And once they can contribute, there’s a much better chance that the idea will come to fruition.

Your Team Can’t Execute What They Can’t See

Entrepreneurs often move quickly. Their brains can be five steps ahead while everyone else is still trying to understand step two.

That isn’t necessarily a problem. It only becomes one when we expect other people to make the same mental leaps.

Clear communication creates the bridge between the idea in your head and the people who can help you make it happen.

Sometimes that means slowing down long enough to explain the context.

Sometimes it means having someone challenge your thinking before you bring it to the team or the world.

Sometimes it means translating a big vision into language, priorities and actions that make sense to different people.

And sometimes you simply need a place to say:

“Okay, I have this thing buzzing around in my head. Can I talk it through with you?”

Absolutely.

That conversation might be exactly where the idea needs to start.

So, What’s Buzzing Around Your Head?

Maybe there’s an idea you’ve been carrying for months.

Maybe you know something in the business needs to change, and you haven’t quite found the words for it.

Or maybe you’ve communicated the same idea several times and can’t understand why it isn’t gaining traction.

Before you swat it away or [GASP] kill it, give it somewhere to land.

Talk it through. Challenge it. Clarify it. Put words around it. Then communicate it in a way that gives your team the opportunity to understand it, contribute to it and help bring it to life.

Find your thinking partner, and if you’ve been looking for a while, reach out to us so we can help you take what’s happening in your head and turn it into conversations your teams can do something with.

And if you happen to know how to get rid of the fruit flies, I’m listening.

Preferably before I pour tonight’s glass of wine.