Sharing Thoughts

Dominance hierarchies can sometimes muffle great ideas. In a situation where you think you know better than your boss or whoever seems to have legitimacy, it's actually unfortunate for the group if you don't speak out.

After all, you might be right. For the take of protecting yourself socially (with good reason), you might not speak out.

The same thing happens in a classroom. There's always the smart kid who always participates. There's nothing wrong with that, but it gives all the other students a reason to keep to themselves even when they might have a brilliant idea.

That's why it is the teacher's, and the leader's job to build in opportunities for students and employees to openly and candidly share their thoughts.

Doing so often means preventing the person who has something to day first from saying something. It may mean not asking for volunteers when asking a crowd to share. It probably means evening the playing field and making everyone go through the same process to share.

If you give people the time and opportunity to come up with ideas, you might be surprised at what they come up with. Their ideas might even be better than yours.