Working in branded merch means creativity is part of the job every day. The challenge usually isn’t coming up with ideas — it’s figuring out what to actually do with them. After a brainstorming session, it’s easy to lose momentum and forget all about those great ideas.
Dr. Bethany Peters, an executive and leadership coach, says this is called the “idea implementation gap.” It’s the disconnect between a team’s ability to come up with ideas and its ability to bring those ideas to completion. If your team struggles with this, it’s not due to a lack of talent but rather an issue with how you move work forward.
Instead of questioning people, Dr. Peters recommends questioning your innovation process. In this issue of PromoPro Daily, we share her 5 signs that your team may struggle with implementing their ideas.
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You generate more ideas than you finish. Even if your team has no shortage of vision, creativity or ambition, you may notice that the ratio of ideas generated to ideas completed is noticeably low. Dr. Peters says this might look like long lists produced in brainstorming sessions but items rarely moving off the list.
Good ideas die quietly. No one directly kills them, she says. They just lose momentum. The initial enthusiasm fades, no one takes ownership of the next step and the idea gets buried under more urgent work.
Evaluation gets skipped or rushed. Dr. Peters says that sometimes ideas jump from “that’s interesting” to “let’s try it” or they stall because no one has the instinct or authority to evaluate which ideas are actually worth pursuing. The team either commits too quickly or deliberates too long.
One person becomes the bottleneck for follow-through. Because finishing requires a different kind of energy than starting, Dr. Peters says that sometimes the team relies on a single person to push projects across the line. That person is typically overloaded, and the team doesn’t fully recognize why. Over time, this dynamic can become one of the subtle stressors that quietly erode leadership stability.
Your meetings are full of restarts. The same initiatives come up again and again, reintroduced as if they’re new, she says. The team is cycling rather than progressing, revisiting the ideation phase because the later phases never gained traction.
Your team may get stuck if you notice any of the patterns above, like rarely following through on ideas or reintroducing the same idea time and again. When you know what issues you’re facing, you can create a more deliberate path from concept to creation.
Compiled by Audrey Sellers
Source: Dr. Bethany Peters, PCC has over 20 years of experience in leadership development. She’s an executive and leadership coach who helps leaders and teams turn insight into action.
