There’s a story I’ve heard many times over the years. The short version is that when Native Americans saw a horse for the first time (horses didn’t exist in the Americas until the Spanish brought them over) they called it a “Big Dog” since they didn’t have a specific word for horse.
Whether this is a true story or not I love it for many reasons. First, just imagine yourself coming into close contact with a large creature of which you’ve never even seen a picture. How would you react? Secondly, this story makes a very important point about how human being interpret totally new ideas. They immediately go to what they know and then modify as best as they can. The problem with this stems from the delay in truly understanding the unique parts of the new idea.
Seeing a horse as a dog makes sense. They are tame as the Spaniards had obviously domesticated them. They did work like dogs even pulling the familiar travois. It wouldn’t be until you were around the horse until you understood that it was definitely a different creature that ate grass, didn’t hunt in packs, spooked easily and had a very different mindset.
Now apply this same issue to your latest idea at the office. You understand the details like the Spaniards did. So much so that you may not realize how completely new the idea is to others. When you are explaining a new idea. Give folks time to adjust their paradigm. They need time to figure out just exactly what they are looking at. To help them make the adjustment, give them examples and let them play in their own way with the idea. Once that’s been done, you’ll have much greater success in explaining exactly what you envision can be accomplished with your newest idea.