As a training and development consultant, I do my fair share of facilitation and brainstorming sessions for clients. One of my biggest challenges in these sessions is getting participants comfortable to open up and share ideas. Why? Because history has proven that when they have made a suggestion in the past, it is all too often shut down with a wall of negativity and cynicism. Tried it before and it didn't work. No budget for that. We'd never get approval for that.

As leaders, we often say that we want to encourage innovative thinking – but let’s be honest, what are we doing to foster it? When an employee comes to us with a new idea, what is our immediate reaction? Are we often a little too quick to shut them down?

Well, here’s a tip to help you in situations like this. If you want to foster innovation in your employees, the next time someone comes to you with an idea, make your first sentence start with How might we… For example, someone suggests that we offer a new lower priced introductory product to complement the existing product line. Your initial ‘inside voice’ might be thinking No way! but let your ‘outside voice’ ask something like How might we produce it and still make a profit? or How might we launch it successfully without cannibalizing our existing product? This will start an entirely different conversation and serve to open up creativity and innovation in ways we may never have dreamed of!

Three simple words - How might we... yet, so very powerful. Try it!