The Most Dangerous Person in the Brainstorm Meeting

“That won’t work, we already tried it.”

The question comes up from time to time: “What do you wish you learned earlier in your career?” For me, the answer is easy. The younger version of myself was an idea assassin.

If someone shared an idea in a brainstorm session that I didn’t immediately like, or if it sounded similar to something we had already attempted in the past, I would shut it down almost instantly. Sometimes with logic, occasionally with sarcasm, and often with the confidence of someone who thought experience automatically meant wisdom.

What I didn’t understand at the time was how expensive that behavior really was.

The damage wasn’t limited to one idea getting rejected. The real cost was what happened next. The room changed. People got quieter. The energy dropped, and risk-taking disappeared. Once someone watches an idea get publicly dismantled, they start calculating whether speaking up again is worth it. Often, the answer is no.

Over time, teams learn what gets rewarded and what gets punished. Our last blog post centered on curiosity and imagination. Here’s the reality: if curiosity gets met with resistance, people stop being curious out loud. They stop bringing rough ideas to the table. Worse, they stop challenging assumptions. Eventually, the conversation becomes painfully safe, and safe conversations rarely create anything meaningful.

“What do you wish you learned earlier in your career?” Brainstorming sessions are not courtrooms, and my role isn’t to be the judge. The goal isn’t to prosecute every imperfect thought. The goal is to explore, build, refine, and uncover possibilities that wouldn’t exist without open conversation.

Now, when someone throws out an idea that feels unrealistic, underdeveloped, or even familiar, I get excited. Instead of immediately looking for flaws, I try to ask better questions…

• What part of this idea is interesting?
• What would have to be true for this idea to actually work?
• Are we dismissing this because it’s bad, or because it feels unfamiliar?
• What has changed in the market, technology, or customer behavior since we last tried something similar?
• Is there a smaller, lower-risk version of this idea we could test first?
• What part of this idea are we reacting to emotionally instead of strategically?

I wish I had learned this lesson years earlier. A lot of leaders unintentionally become idea assassins because they value efficiency, experience, and decisiveness. That was certainly true for me. The irony is that over time, they slowly train their teams to stop bringing opportunities, insights, and creative thinking to the table. In a world where brands love to claim innovation as a core value, this is a great way to kill it.

If you want better ideas inside your company, your team, or your relationships, pay attention to how you respond when someone speaks up. The way you show up in those moments shapes whether the next idea ever gets shared at all.