When a Good Idea Suddenly Feels Like a Bad One
How a few innocent questions, an IKEA cupboard, and a tube of mounting glue reminded me of something important about leadership.
Leading People · Feedback · Decision-making · Confidence
When a good idea suddenly feels like a bad one
YouTubeThis article is inspired by real workplace and leadership experiences. I do not use real names, company names or identifying details. Roles, teams, organisational structures, projects and business context may be removed, generalised or combined to protect the people and organisations involved while preserving the underlying leadership reflection. Where conversations are referenced, wording may be edited for clarity and anonymity.
This weekend, I decided to build an IKEA cupboard.
Now, anyone who has ever assembled IKEA furniture knows that this is already a fairly ambitious way to spend a Sunday. It's essentially a test of your patience, your relationship, and your ability to interpret drawings made by someone who apparently has a personal vendetta against written instructions.
But I was ready.
I'd measured everything. I'd worked out where the cupboard would go. I'd thought about how the sliding doors would fit, what needed attaching to the wall, and how the whole thing would come together.
More importantly, my wife and I had already discussed it.
We had a plan. We were aligned. The decision had been made.
In my mind, we were well beyond the planning phase. I'd mentally ticked that box, moved into execution mode, and was looking forward to admiring my handiwork later that afternoon.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, apparently, quite a lot.
Because just as I was getting ready to start, the questions began.
"Are you sure we should do that first?"
"Wouldn't it make more sense to do this instead?"
"But what happens if we want to change it later?"
"Are you sure that's the best way to attach it?"
Now, to be clear, these were perfectly reasonable questions. My wife wasn't telling me the cupboard was a terrible idea. She wasn't asking me to abandon the project or return everything to IKEA.
She was simply thinking through the practicalities.
Unfortunately, my brain had other plans.
Within about ten minutes, I'd gone from confidently preparing to assemble a cupboard to contemplating whether installing a piece of furniture was about to become the biggest strategic mistake of my weekend.
Suddenly, I was questioning everything.
What if I put it in the wrong place? What if I attach something permanently and we want to move it? What if the sliding doors don't work quite as expected?
And then came the mounting glue.
For those unfamiliar with mounting glue, it's essentially the DIY equivalent of making a decision you're not entirely sure you can take back.
The packaging makes it sound wonderful. Strong adhesion. Permanent fixing. No drilling required.
Fantastic.
Until you start wondering what happens when you eventually want to remove it.
And that's how I found myself asking ChatGPT how difficult it would be to remove mounting glue from a wall.
Not because I'd made a mistake.
Not because anything had gone wrong.
But because I'd already started mentally planning how to undo something I hadn't even done yet.
At this point, I wasn't building a cupboard anymore.
I was conducting a full risk assessment on the potential consequences of building a cupboard.
And the most ridiculous part?
We still wanted the cupboard.
Nobody had withdrawn their support.
The original plan hadn't fundamentally changed.
Yet somehow, I'd managed to turn a relatively straightforward home improvement project into an existential crisis involving sliding doors, mounting glue, and the prospect of having to repaint a wall.
And then it hit me.
I do this at work, too.
Not with cupboards, thankfully. Although some corporate initiatives probably come with equally confusing assembly instructions.
But with ideas.
Think about a time when you've been genuinely excited about something you wanted to introduce at work.
Maybe you've identified a process that isn't working. Perhaps you've come up with a different way of structuring your team, improving the customer experience, or solving a problem that's been frustrating everyone for months.
You've thought about it. You've challenged yourself. You've worked through the obvious risks.
By the time you're ready to share it, you're convinced it's worth pursuing.
You're excited.
You walk into a conversation with your manager or leadership team expecting them to see what you see.
And then the questions start.
"Have you considered the impact on this team?"
"What happens if it doesn't work?"
"Do we really need to do this now?"
"Couldn't we achieve something similar another way?"
All perfectly valid questions.
And eventually, after a bit of discussion, you hear the words:
"Okay, sounds good. Go ahead."
You got the approval.
You can proceed.
So why do you suddenly feel considerably less excited about the idea than you did thirty minutes earlier?
I've experienced this before, and it's a fascinating thing to recognise in yourself.
Because sometimes the feedback isn't particularly negative.
In fact, the person giving it might think they've just had a constructive conversation.
They've asked a few questions, helped you consider some alternatives, and supported your proposal.
Job done.
Meanwhile, you're leaving the meeting mentally dismantling the entire initiative.
You're wondering whether you've overlooked something obvious.
Whether the other person was simply being polite.
Whether their lack of enthusiasm means they don't actually believe in the idea.
And before long, you're reconsidering decisions that nobody explicitly asked you to reconsider.
You've taken someone else's questions and turned them into your own objections.
That's the part I find particularly interesting.
We often talk about execution paralysis as though it's the result of not knowing what to do.
But sometimes you know exactly what you want to do.
You know why you want to do it.
You even have permission to proceed.
What you no longer have is the same confidence you walked into the conversation with.
And suddenly, every step feels considerably more consequential than it did before.
For me, a big part of that hesitation comes from thinking about the effort involved in reversing a decision.
It's not necessarily the fear of getting something wrong.
It's the thought of having to undo it.
If I launch a new initiative and it doesn't work, how much effort will it take to unwind?
If I change a process and people dislike it, how difficult will it be to restore what we had?
If I commit resources to something and discover it wasn't the right direction, how much additional work have I created for everyone?
And just like my cupboard, I can find myself mentally calculating the cost of reversing a decision before I've even given myself the opportunity to see whether it works.
Of course, we should think about consequences.
Part of making good decisions is understanding what happens if things don't go according to plan.
But there's a difference between evaluating risk and becoming consumed by the possibility of having to correct a mistake.
I think we sometimes forget that making a decision doesn't require us to guarantee that we'll never need to change it.
It requires us to have enough confidence in our reasoning to move forward with the information available.
And perhaps the willingness to acknowledge that we might learn something along the way.
But there's another side to this story.
What happens when we're the person asking the questions?
As leaders, we're often encouraged to challenge ideas.
And rightly so.
We should ask difficult questions. We should identify risks. We should help people think more critically about what they're proposing.
I certainly don't want people bringing me ideas simply looking for me to nod enthusiastically and tell them they're brilliant.
That wouldn't be particularly useful to them, or to the organisation.
But reflecting on my IKEA-induced crisis made me wonder how often I've unintentionally done the same thing to someone else.
How many times has someone come to me excited about an idea, only for me to immediately start exploring all the things they might not have considered?
Not because I thought the idea was bad.
Not because I wanted to discourage them.
But because asking questions is how I engage with something.
How often have I walked away from those conversations thinking we'd had a productive discussion, while the other person walked away wondering whether I actually supported them?
That's an uncomfortable thought.
Because I know how important it is to create an environment where people feel confident bringing forward ideas.
And yet I can also see how easily we might undermine that confidence without intending to.
I don't think the answer is to become less challenging.
If anything, I think we need more thoughtful challenge in organisations.
But perhaps we need to become better at communicating what our questions actually mean.
There's a difference between questioning someone's thinking because you don't believe in it and questioning their thinking because you want to help make it stronger.
We might know which one we're doing.
The person sitting opposite us might not.
And sometimes a simple acknowledgement of the idea's potential, before exploring its weaknesses, can change the entire tone of the conversation.
Equally, I think there's a responsibility on the person receiving the feedback.
And this is probably where my own lesson sits.
Just because someone asks a question doesn't mean they've identified a problem.
Sometimes they're simply curious.
Sometimes they're trying to understand something you've spent weeks thinking about but they've only just encountered.
Sometimes they're doing exactly what you would do if the roles were reversed.
And perhaps most importantly, their questions don't automatically invalidate the thinking that brought you to that point.
I wonder how much time we collectively waste revisiting decisions that were never actually challenged.
How many good ideas lose momentum because someone interpreted a question as hesitation?
How many projects become unnecessarily complicated because we start trying to address concerns that were never really expressed?
And how often do we mistake someone else's lack of visible enthusiasm for a lack of support?
I don't have a perfect answer to any of these questions.
In fact, considering I managed to turn installing an IKEA cupboard into a minor psychological event, I'm probably not in a position to deliver a masterclass on decisive execution.
But I do think there's something worth recognising here.
We all want our ideas to be well received.
When we've invested time, thought, and energy into something, it's natural to hope that other people will recognise its potential.
And when their response doesn't match our enthusiasm, it's easy to start questioning our own judgement.
Perhaps the challenge is learning to separate the feedback we actually received from the meaning we've attached to it.
To recognise when a question genuinely deserves us to reconsider our approach, and when it's simply part of someone else trying to understand our thinking.
To be willing to change our minds without feeling that every question requires us to do so.
And, as leaders, to remember that the way we challenge someone can influence not only the quality of their idea, but also their willingness to execute it.
As for the cupboard?
Well, I still think it's a good idea.
We still need it. The plan still makes sense. And as far as I'm aware, my wife hasn't suddenly developed a fundamental objection to sliding doors.
I've just spent considerably more time thinking about the possibility of having to remove it than I ever expected.
Which brings me back to something I think we should all remember, whether we're building furniture or trying to introduce change at work.
Sometimes an idea hasn't become any worse. We've just become less confident in it.
And those are two very different things.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a cupboard to build.
Assuming, of course, I can first establish the long-term strategic implications of mounting glue.
