AV Club: Being a designer definitely changes your perspective on new ideas. As designers, we tend to have a lot of ideas so even 99% being going no where is no big deal to us. Also, we are used to using critique to make our ideas stronger. When dealing with non-designers, I often get the feeling that their idea is their one idea. It’s their only child and they can’t bear to think of something happening to it. I try to remember that every time someone pitches an idea to me.
Something that I found helps both the pitcher and receiver is to not give too much feedback right away. Maybe the idea is excellent, but you are busy or your head is in problem-solving mode and you are going to immediately try to kill it. Try to say, “Oh, that’s interesting. Let me thick about it.” That way, you have time to consider it when you are in the right mode to receive the idea and the pitcher feels that their idea is valuable (you are taking time to consider it).
For more ideas, I highly recommend this article:
Go to the section “Supervisory Encouragement”