Reality check

Every once in a while I have an idea and my ego-driven consciousness automatically places it into the “good idea” column. But of course, in my job, I have to run a few numbers to validate that the idea is in fact worth pursuing before launching into action. And some of the time, my hypotheses turn out to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

At a meeting with a group of colleagues last week, we discussed an emerging practice of prioritizing leads according to a certain criterion. It occurred to me that the de-prioritized leads might be recycled for cultivation in another area. Seemed like a reasonable possibility. I may have mentioned it in passing to a couple of other colleagues and they eagerly contacted me yesterday to inquire about the status of my validation effort.

After examining the population and the demographic descriptors around this population, they are not a good fit. My idea was baloney. But nonetheless, I’m glad that I checked it out. Better to have examined a pool of discarded leads than to simply discard them without any further thought. In the future, I might learn to be slightly more judicious in couching my ideas verbally.