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Suggestions Feedback

I have an employee who frequently comes to me with suggestions. She has sweeping ideas about benefits, systems, parties, and just about everything else, and all of her suggestions have been unusable. I encourage employees to make suggestions, and I feel badly about rejecting all of hers. I want her to continue to bring in suggestions, but I am tiring of hearing every half-baked idea that comes into her head. How should I handle this?



Since this employee is free to come to you with suggestions, perhaps you should give her one: suggest that she spend more time refining her ideas before meeting with you.

At the same time, it might also be helpful to look at your behavior when she presents her ideas to you. If you take a few minutes to hear her thoughts and then dismiss them, you have not given her any guidance for future suggestions. As a result, you can expect her to either continue to present half-baked ideas or to stop coming up with any new ideas at all. With either outcome, you both lose.

In future meetings, try to do some brainstorming over her suggestion. If her idea lacks focus, clarity, or feasibility, you should provide her with some clear and specific feedback regarding the key elements that can make this and future ideas more usable.

It can also be useful to tell her more about employee suggestions that have been implemented in the past. This can help her cook up new ideas, while also helping her understand the difference between half-baked and baked.



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