How bad ideas get started, and how to stop them

Sometimes you have to wonder. Some of the dumbest ideas somehow get traction early on, and then there's no stopping them. It's not unique to the nonprofit world, of course, but we suffer terribly from the power of bad thinking. Our hunger for big ideas, and our yearning to move our mission to a higher level of effectiveness undermines our discipline.

The Beyond Madison Avenue blog takes a look at this phenomenon (in a corporate context) in Blather in the boardroom:

• An important or charismatic person spouts off with the first idea in their head, and everyone else fawns all over it.
  
• The people in the meeting have special knowledge and understanding they assume everyone else knows too.
  
• It's taken as a given that everyone else will believe in their idea, just because they do.
  

Go ahead. Tell me you've seen it before.

Here's an almost fool-proof way to fight bad ideas in the nonprofit world:

Test ideas with donors. I don't mean focus groups. Focus groups are bogus. (Read Focus groups can kill you.) I'm talking disciplined direct-response testing. Find out how donors respond -- not what they say, but what they really do in when your idea hits their lives.

Donors will humble you, make you smarter, and hone your message in a way that can make you unstoppable. But you have to listen to them.

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