3 Things You Should Say When Your Boss Rejects Your
Idea
It can be embarrassing when your boss shuts down your suggestions, but
it’s not the end of your career.
Your idea (you know, the one that you were convinced was genius)
was just shot down by your boss, and you feel
like you could react in one of three ways:
1.
Pretend you were only joking and then make a bunch of
unconvincing, self-deprecating remarks about what a terrible suggestion that
was.
2.
Act as if you have a super urgent commitment you forgot about,
high-tail it out of that meeting, and then make your best effort to avoid your
manager for the duration of your career.
3.
Immediately burst into tears.
Or, if you want to be a real overachiever, you could do none of those
things and instead use one of these career-boosting phrases to bounce back from
that rejection even better than before.
1. “HOW DO YOU THINK THIS COULD BE IMPROVED?”
Your boss gave you that dreaded, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Well,
that’s the end of the road, right? It’s time to drop that idea entirely and
slink away with whatever shred of dignity you have left.
True–you don’t want to get into a heated debate with your
supervisor about why your suggestion does indeed have some merit. However, that
doesn’t mean you need to just accept rejection at face value.
In fact, leaders appreciate when their direct reports are willing
to ask the tough questions and get clarification on which aspects of their
ideas (if any!) are worth exploring.
Not only does this encourage a productive conversation (which
usually brings some other helpful insights to light!), but it also proves that
you’re willing to utilize that feedback to make improvements moving
forward.
Taking the extra step to get that added input means you’ll be able
to pitch a more solid recommendation next time around–which, ultimately, is
your boss’s goal. He or she wants you to be successful.
2. “I’LL SEE WHAT ELSE I CAN
COME UP WITH”
What inspired you to brainstorm that new method anyway? Chances
are, you came up with it in order to solve a problem—a problem that very well
might still need to be addressed.
Responding to your manager with a statement like this one proves
that you aren’t just going to roll over in the face of defeat. You don’t accept
one rejection as your “get out of jail free” card to stop thinking and
innovating altogether.
So after you’ve asked your boss for some additional feedback about
why your idea didn’t work as is (remember, that above question is great for
that!), explicitly tell your supervisor that you’re going to take that
information back to the drawing board and come up with something even better.
Resilience and persistence are really admirable (and
career-boosting!) qualities in any employee.
3. “THANKS FOR THE CONSIDERATION AND FEEDBACK”
There are those times when you just know your idea needs to be
dropped–that you’ll never convince your boss that Fridays should be office-wide
pajama days, or that the break room vending machine should serve Gardetto’s
exclusively. Not every suggestion deserves the same amount of pushback.
So if your supervisor has shot down your recommendation and you
just want to leave it at that, a short response like this one is a good one to
lean on.
It’s polite, professional, and gracious. Even if you won’t be pursuing
that plan any further, letting your manager know that you appreciate her even
thinking it over is an effective way to move on from that failed suggestion
with your reputation and relationship intact.
Not having your ideas met with
resounding praise and applause can be a bit of a brutal slap in the face. But,
as with so many things in your career, it’s not always about what happens–it’s
about how you react to it.
So the next time your boss shoots down your suggestion, resist the
urge to suddenly fake a mysterious illness and instead implement one (or a combination
of) these three phrases to bounce back–with no spontaneous crying required.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Muse
BY KAT BOOGAARD—THE MUSE
https://www.fastcompany.com/40524114/3-things-you-should-say-when-your-boss-rejects-your-idea?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Daily&position=7&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=02022018
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