I recently heard what I initially thought was a terrible idea from a founder who was running out of money.

“Hey Andy, I’m thinking about throwing a big launch party to promote our new product.’ My gut reaction? ‘You must be joking, right? With 3 months of runway?” I admit, my response was less than enthusiastic…”

Our default response to new ideas is often a quick gut reaction, almost a survival instinct. After all, avoiding the berry no one else ate kept our ancestors alive for 300,000 years. But today, that instinct often stands in the way of innovation.

I feel like a human’s default gut reaction is to think: “Bad idea.” Makes sense, ‘running away’ from the berry that nobody ate kept us alive for 300,000 years.

The problem is, good ideas often sound like bad ideas. And one critical component to discovering a good idea is hearing (and considering) a lot of bad ideas. But you won’t hear many ideas at all if your gut reaction is “Bad idea.”

Yep, receiving an innovative idea is hard, very hard. Especially if you want to hear them more often. That’s why the first few seconds are critical. The problem is:

• new ideas don’t come very often
• new ideas initially sound stupid, risky, funny, unhinged… or all of the above
• new ideas will stop coming to you if your response is anything but interest

Here’s a test: Think about what you enjoy doing the most every day. Now imagine I suggest you stop doing that and instead do something you hate. Your gut reaction? “That’s a horrible idea!” But what if, instead, you said, ‘Let me think about that’? By shifting your response, you’re opening the door to new possibilities.

What if an app was designed to help break this “bad idea” reflex? Each day, it would share a deliberately bad idea and require you to respond with a compliment. Maybe we just need a simpe way to train our minds to stay open to new thinking, even when an idea sounds odd at first.

It’s one thing for a person to try and be more open to new ideas, but what about an organization? Scaling a company and keeping its entrepreneurial nature is notoriously challenging, to me it starts with how new ideas are received.

Thinking about the Airbnb founders’ 11-star experience framework, what would that experience look like for someone sharing a new idea within their organization?

1 Star – A new idea leads to getting fired
2 Stars – A new idea is publically mocked
3 Stars – A new idea is received with indifference
4 Stars – A new idea is enthusiastically complimented publically
5 Stars – A new idea quarterly bonus and promotion metric
6 Stars – A new idea annual all-expense-paid trip
9 Stars – A new idea makes you the most well respected and highest compensated person in the company, you’re made the CEO and Board Chair and spiritual leader of the company
11 Stars – A new idea is received by a stadium full of cheering fans who all think you’re a true genius for sharing an idea, they’re begging for your autograph and offering $1m for each new idea you share

Of course, the 11-star experience is fantasy. But aiming for a culture that regularly hits 5-6 stars – where new ideas are welcomed, rewarded, and seriously considered, can have real organizational impact.

The quantity of new ideas alone is not the end goal. And incentivizing constant ideas with no evaluation or action can turn into a distracted/scattered organization. Doesn’t incentivizing new ideas, even imperfect ones, ultimately lead to more revenue growth than suppressing them?

In addition to individual-specific new idea rewards, what if management bonuses were tied to the company’s capacity to generate new idea? Maybe an annual survey question “how does management respond to innovative ideas” with a quantitative 1-10 response between “very positively” and “very negatively”

Just think if this question was asked to every employee of a public company – I wonder how “good idea metric” would overlay with share price?

I’ll finish with a reminder to myself how to respond to new ideas. Maybe something like this:

“I love how you share new ideas with me, you really have a talent for creativity and brainstorming. Please keep sharing them with me! You sure have me thinking now, can you tell me a little more about how your idea would work?”

By changing the way we respond to new ideas – whether from a colleague, founder, or friend -we encourage innovation and help the next ‘big idea’ emerge. Even if it starts out sounding terrible.