In This Edition Of The Soulful Lens at Work: Having your contribution shut down in a meeting ranks among the most soul-crushing experiences at work. How you handle it can make-or-break the outcome.

• SOULFUL: Part of the soul-crushing feeling is your power being taken. Take the power back by turning the shut-down into a question.
• PRACTICAL: Cutting off contributions deprives the organization of ideas and maintains its fragility. Identifying where the system is fragile can help you navigate through it.
• THE CONNECTION: When we feel like our contributions are heard, we contribute and the organization benefits from those contributions.
• TRY THIS: Next time you hear an idea shut down in a meeting, pull the door open for that idea. Try saying “I’d like to hear more about Jen’s idea.”

Hi Reader,
​
I used to be that person—dropping “What if we’re thinking about this completely backwards?” into every meeting. Now, people (mostly) pause and listen. But early in my career, my ideas were shot down on sight:

Three months later, my idea was exactly what they needed to avoid bankruptcy. What went wrong? And could I have prevented my idea being shut-down?

The real takeaway: new ideas trigger threat responses—sometimes as trivial as “we’ll run over time” and sometimes as deep as “all my hard work will be for nothing.” It only takes one person feeling threatened to silence a spark.

Remember, that it’s rarely about the idea itself; it’s almost always about protecting comfort, control, or credibility.

So the question becomes not “How do I make my idea bulletproof?” but “How do I defuse that threat response?” Let’s dive into that next.

Soulfully ✨
​- Jardena

Being Shut Down Isn’t About You

It’s happened to all of us at some point. Our meeting input is ignored, or we find out, always later, about having been excluded from a meeting. It feels very personal, even well prepared confident people question their credibility and doubt their ideas when shut down.

As a woman in a male dominated field I thought for a very long time that I was shut down because I was female. I can see in hindsight that the pattern was always the same and that it wasn’t me: new ideas get shut down in a system that is not able to process information. My ideas expressed by anyone, any other way would have been shut down too, but perhaps in a different way.

Knowing that this is a systemic problem not a personal problem can help you get past dwelling in rejection. Then you can shift the conversation and disrupt the status quo.
​

So what do we do about it? Control what we can, how we think and respond. Two things:

1. Get Curious
   ​Curiosity is always the first step! Stop blaming yourself and others, and get curious about the root of the threat response to your idea or input, what is causing the reaction.​
   ​
   ​We’ll explore more in “The Practical” section, but for now just know that a person and/or the system feel threatened by you. We’ll go over typical causes of threat response in the next section. ​
   ​
2. Take Back the Power
   ​When you shared your idea you had power, the power to change the trajectory of events. One of the reasons you got shut-down is because someone didn’t want you to have that power. Taking away your power is an attempt to silence you. But your idea holds power, and you can take it back.
   ​
   ​Kasia Urbaniak’s signature “one simple trick” for taking back your power is to weaponize questions—what she calls a form of verbal jiu-jitsu—whenever you feel yourself pinned, frozen, or interrupted. The logic is straightforward: whoever has the floor (and whoever holds the audience’s attention) has the power. By firing a question back at your interlocutor, you redirect that attention—and with it, the power—right back to them.
   ​
   The question doesn’t have to be clever, you don’t need to address their concerns with your idea. One simple way to take the power back is to question the damage they are doing by shutting you down. “I am suggesting consideration of this idea. What is the cost of not raising concerns or suggestions?”
   ​
   What if the shut-down comes from a person of senior authority? Try something less in-your-face but also clear. “I can hear that you are don’t think this idea has merit. Before we move on, I’d like to verify that you are asking me to close down this possibility.”

Now that you have your power back, let’s move on to what you can do with it.

Shut-downs are a Sign of Fragility

When people are shut down in a meeting, it’s a sign of a fragile system. If you expand your focus, you’ll likely find that the entire organization is failing to process information effectively. It’s paradoxical that the more ideas are shut down, the more they are likely needed.

Countless case studies have been written about this phenomenon like Blockbuster / Netflix, Sears / Amazon. And yet none of those case studies have taught companies how to avoid losing adaptability.

The problem is that in a fragile system, people don’t recognize that they are shutting down ideas and signals. The information is so foreign that it seems illogical to process it or there literally is no way to process it.

No one says “hey I’m going to shut down this good idea because I feel threatened.” Instead it sounds more like this:

— Wasting Time - “We don’t have time, it’s a distraction that will take us off track.” Most shut-downs have some element of “time wasting”.​
— Too Late - “The decision has already been made, we are too far down this path to turn back.” AKA “the train has left the station” “the ship has sailed” and “we have to stay focused.”​
— My Sources Only - “Experts have recommended our course. You are not an expert. And here’s a bunch of jargon to make me feel smart and to make you feel stupid….”

If you try to handle these objections, you will lose your power. A better strategy is to recognize the fragility in the system, and address that. The more forceful the objection, the more fragile the system.
​

1. Reveal the system to itself.
   ​Step 1 of any system response is to reveal the system to itself. I liken this to dusting for fingerprints.
   ​
   You might do this by pointing to the implications of shutting down the idea, rather than responding to the argument.
   “Let’s open up the field of possibilities for a moment so we don’t put blinders on like < did.”
   ​
2. Find the right person/people​
   With respect to all people, some people’s role has a limited scope and it may not be in their interest to care about your idea. If that’s the case, it’s futile to argue with them. Find the right people.
   ​
3. Reframe your idea to solve the threat to the system; while framing the objection as a greater threat.
   ​This part is a little tricky, and may take some prep. This requires some clear trade-off articulation. Let’s try an example:
   You are proposing that we pivot and instead of building 100 product features slowly, we build just one great feature quickly.
   The argument is that you are creating risk to the delivery timeline.
   Your response might be “How do we know that 100 features slowly will yield better results than one feature quickly? A pivot could reduce risk, save time and bring in more revenue. Are you willing to shut the door on considering the option?”

The practical perspective on shutting down ideas is that it is a systemic failure to process information. Failure to process signals creates risk for the organization. The more you can illuminate that risk, the more input can see the light of day and organization can grow more adaptive.

New Ideas are Good for the Soul and Good for Business

Fragile organizations don’t know how to process new information, so they shut it down. This doesn’t feel good in our souls and it doesn’t look good on our P&L.

Organizations designed for efficiency may not have a way to sense and process new thinking. If it doesn’t fit into their model, it gets spit out.
​

Flip the script: Getting an organization to process a new idea and new information can be soulful and financially beneficial.

Try this:

Break the fragility. Next time you hear an idea get shut down, stop thinking about the merit of the idea. We tend to get wrapped up in judging an idea instead of the process of exploring ideas.

1. Stop judging the idea and start looking at the process to explore the idea. This shifts away from premature judgement.
2. Interject and ask to hear more. This gives the idea some air.
3. Redirect the conversation to explore clear trade-offs between the new idea and the status quo. What is possible if the new idea has merit?

Every time you invite an unheard idea back into the conversation, you’re not only restoring someone’s sense of belonging—you’re strengthening the organization’s capacity to evolve and thrive.

Quote of the Week 💬

We’ve all encountered the ‘idea swatter’—the person who shuts down new ideas before they can even take off.
​
We can laugh at this all-too-common scenario, but the reality can be soul-crushing when your ideas aren’t heard or valued.