“That’s Unrealistic” — When Experience Stops a Good Idea Too Early

Product meeting. Olek suggests simplifying a process that has long seemed unnecessarily heavy to him.

— What if the user could do this without the whole process?
— That’s unrealistic. We have requirements, security, and deadlines.
— Okay.

Anna believes she has quickly filtered out a risky idea. Olek takes the response as a signal that he should stop investigating it.

What really happened

Anna quickly recognizes several real constraints and closes Olek’s idea on that basis. From her perspective, this is sensible risk filtering: experienced people should not have to relearn every mistake they already understand. Olek, however, is not claiming his idea will definitely work. He wants to test it. When he hears a categorical “that’s unrealistic,” the question closes before even a small experiment can happen. A month later, a similar solution appears elsewhere. That does not prove Anna “should have known.” It only shows that a definitive judgment removed the chance to collect new evidence. The conflict is therefore less about the idea itself than about how much evidence is enough to stop asking the question.

What the research says

Experience helps people recognize familiar patterns faster, but it can also lead to closing alternatives too quickly when a new option is judged entirely through existing assumptions. Decision psychology describes several mechanisms that can contribute, including a tendency to seek evidence that supports an existing belief more readily than evidence that might disconfirm it — confirmation bias (Nickerson, 1998). In organizations, another question matters too: do people feel able to surface an unfinished idea and learn through a small experiment without unnecessary social cost? That is closely related to psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999; Edmondson & Lei, 2014). Research on how innovation projects are shut down also suggests that feedback which strongly threatens the creator’s social standing can reduce willingness to try again (face threat and psychological safety; Daly & Sætre, 2023). The point is not that every idea deserves a trial. It is that a verdict and a test are different decisions.

How to handle it

You do not need to test every idea. But separate “we are not implementing this” from “we are not testing this.” Instead of “that’s unrealistic,” ask: “Which assumption is riskiest here, and what is the cheapest test that would show whether it is true?” If a test costs a day while a full rollout costs months, approving the test is not the same as approving implementation. The general rule is: experience should help decide what to test first, not automatically replace testing when a small experiment can quickly produce new evidence.

How Empatyzer and Em can help

Empatyzer can help Anna preserve what is valuable in her style — fast risk filtering — without closing the idea before data exists. The assessment and profile comparison may show that Anna strongly protects order, outcomes, and safety, while Olek naturally searches for new routes and tests possibilities quickly. Before the conversation, Em can suggest a question that combines both styles: “What is the smallest test that would challenge the riskiest assumption?” Olek gets room to produce evidence, but not automatic approval for a full rollout. If the pattern repeats across the organization, team-level insights may show where innovation regularly collides with the need for risk control. Micro-lessons reinforce an approach in which experience helps design a better test instead of always replacing the test with a verdict.