Why we defend our ideas even when they’re bad.

Sometimes we are so attached to things that we own or the ideas that we come up with. Let’s assume you own a car, and you are upgrading to a new one. You’ll probably start estimating the value of the car a little more than the market price because you have an emotional connection with it. Memories of those beautiful trips with your family and friends. The time you spent with it, customizations you did to your car to make it look beautiful. All these things make you feel how precious your car is, effort adds to our affection and attachment. On the other hand, Buyer doesn’t see all this. They just want to get that car for a steal. They don’t have any attachments or memories to it, it is just a car to them.

Do you get upset when someone criticizes your idea? Do you always end up fighting for it in a defensive way?

Ownership — when I come up with an idea, I own it. I have spent hours thinking about it. I get offended when someone starts criticizing it. Since it is my idea, I’ll probably start defending it like my baby. When I started my career, my ego would often come in the way and make me fight for it even if it was a bad idea. After all, that’s what any good designer would have done (defend their idea). We’ve always been told to defend our work when presenting it with the team or shareholders. But that’s when the problem started, the feedback I got was not accurate and unproductive. It did not let me improve my work neither my manager was happy. Our intents switch from honestly defending our idea to proving ourselves. It was a Bad Mistake!

What was stopping me from being open minded was that if I admit that I am wrong, they’ll think that I am stupid. Or I was not smart enough to see it first. Or it might be my EGO. When we are defending our work, we loose the opportunity to explore and dig deeper. Our meetings become more of an argument rather than a constructive solution. It lead’s nowhere. However, there’s nothing wrong with defending the idea if our intent is to let the best idea win.

The best way to defend our work is not to defend it at all.

Listening, with time I stopped doing that. I started listening to the feedback with an open mind. I started asking more questions about the feedback my teammates or manager gave, which helped me in understanding their point of view. These feedbacks can be the most valuable resources for your idea to innovate further. This is way easier than going through the user data and trying to find what you’re looking for.

The most critical step in all of this is to ask questions.

In summary…

We all care about our ideas and creations. The more effort we put on it, the more we start caring about it. When proposing your idea be open-minded, everyone has their point of view and opinions. Be prepared for critics and understand what they are trying to say. Don’t be defensive.