Why Good Ideas Die in Meetings

A conversation about understanding, participation, and seeing beyond the barriers in Marketing and Brand Development.

Every marketer knows that moment, the spark of an idea that feels alive. You imagine the impact, the headlines, the reactions. Then you share it in a meeting, and within ten minutes, the spark turns into smoke. Dries out like that last potato in the air fryer.

But it’s not malice. Maybe good ideas die because we forget that not everyone sees what we see.

Let's understand this and how to approach it.

1. Vision Isn’t Universal

Marketing people live in the future. We see what can be. But many teams and organizations are built around what already works. So when a marketer talks about a new campaign, product, or platform, it can sound like a foreign language to those outside the discipline. To finance, it’s risk. To operations, it’s disruption. To leadership, it’s uncertainty. To your other colleagues and collaborators your are such a dreamer; "Olly, you've come again with your elaborate ideas."

The gap isn’t ignorance, it’s translation. To be heard, to be seen and to be understood, Marketers must learn to paint the picture, not just pitch the concept. Show what it looks like when it works, not just explain why it could and expect everyone to be happy to play their part. Complete your pitch by letting EVERYONE know what they stand to gain, not how it makes the company look or how it solidifies the Marketing Plan. Without information, without visualization, there is push back and when there is push back, you open yourself up to assumptions as to why. For instance, you might start to think you work is not good enough or your concepts are poor.

2. The Imagined Barriers

The biggest obstacles marketers face are rarely the ones written on paper, they are the ones imagined in people’s minds.

Every department sees marketing through a different lens. Most of which aren't real barriers. They are interpretations and interpretations fill the vacuum when clarity is missing.

Marketing suffers most when the intent behind our work gets lost in translation. People don’t push back because your idea is bad; they push back because they don’t yet understand how it touches them, stretches them, or benefits them.

Budget is only one expression of that misunderstanding.

For example, when a marketer asks for $15,000, most people don’t see strategy — they see subtraction. They imagine strain, not return. They imagine cost, not customers. They imagine work, not impact. But the money is never the real issue. The barrier is the story they’ve told themselves about what marketing is.

And that story often sounds like this:

• “Marketing is expensive.”

• “Marketing takes too long to see results.”

• “Marketing complicates processes.”

• “Marketing isn’t a priority right now.”

• “We’ve tried things before and nothing changed.”

• "How do we know it will work or if it's working" (A popular one and the major reason why I developed a Master Template for KPI Monitoring for Marketing Departments & Staff. Out soon in Downloads)

  
  

All above assumptions are not facts; they are fear wearing logic’s clothing. This is why marketers must translate before they request. We can’t just defend the budget, we must dismantle the imagined barriers that created the hesitation in the first place.

When people understand what the work actually achieves, alignment increases. When they don’t, every idea feels like a disruption. A new ADHD hobby. The barrier is rarely the ask. It is the assumption.

3. A Paragraph For Management

Creative energy is powerful, but it is also fragile. A leader’s silence in a meeting echoes louder than their criticism. When management stops showing up — mentally or physically — the room adjusts. Team members pull back, ideas become safer, and everyone starts coloring inside the lines because there is no signal that innovation will be caught, supported, or defended.

But here’s the truth: marketers don’t need applause. They need presence.

If you are leading a team, show up with curiosity, not to approve, but to understand. Your attention is not a “nice-to-have”; it is fuel. Don’t wait for enthusiasm — invite it in. Like I always say, "Curiosity is the spark that awakens intelligence, invites questions and sharpens our reasoning."

A a leaders, recognize the part you play in the outcome, the role you occupy in the success story. When leaders engage, teams take risks. When leaders disengage, teams retreat.

Creativity isn’t fragile because it’s soft — it’s fragile because it requires connection. And connection starts with showing up.

“Curiosity is the spark that awakens intelligence, invites questions and sharpens our reasoning..”

4. Resistance to Newness

Change feels expensive ; not always in money, but in comfort. And comfort is currency in most workplaces.

When an idea challenges an old system, it’s natural for people to tense up. Your job isn’t to fight that, it’s to reduce the distance between new and familiar. Use examples, visuals, analogies. Make it feel less like rebellion and more like evolution.

Every revolution sounds like nonsense at first, until it starts working.

5. In Conclusion

The next time your idea meets resistance, ask yourself:

• Did I make them see it or just hear it?

• Did I show them how it serves their priorities, not just mine?

• Have I presented data to back this proposal?

• How does this fit into and benefit our current and planned campaigns? etc.

• Who benefits from this and how did I let them see this?

• Is management onboard?

  
  

If an idea dies in a meeting, revive it with clarity, and direction. Because sometimes the problem isn’t that people don’t care, it’s that they can’t see what you see, and they don't understand what you know. Good ideas don’t just need to be smart, they need to be seen, felt and understood. And you don’t need to wait for permission to make that happen; guide others into the vision.