An idea is the same as progress
- Under stress, smart people think in basics. Having *any* plan feels like relief — like the hard part is over. Organizations reward decisive speech, so the person who blurts a crisp idea can end the conversation before anyone checks whether the idea is any good.
- Teams ship bad plans with high confidence. Execution gets undervalued because choosing the idea already felt like taking action. Depth dies; speed and black-and-white thinking win.
- Stress makes humans grasp for straws. An idea that *seems* to solve the problem — no matter how badly — beats sitting in uncertainty. That isn’t brilliance. It’s a classic cognitive shortcut.
- Separate ideation from decision. Ask what would have to be true, what the cheapest test is, and who owns the next concrete step. Ideas are cheap; progress is evidence.
More on this pattern in Why smart people come up with bad ideas.