Here is a scenario you have likely been involved with if you have had even a short amount of engineering experience.
Someone in a meeting suggests something that is unorthodox. Others dismiss it – maybe even derisively. But the one who put it forward continues to think it is a perfectly good, and logical, idea to pursue further. Neither side agrees with the other nor even understands the other.
How can engineers, who should be using sound and rational reasoning to assess all ideas, disagree like this? Surely, they should be able to explain their point in sufficient detail to ensure clarity – and not degrade into unfounded disagreement that seems more like personal preference.
The reason for this is that at least one party (probably all) is relying on their instinctive response and they don’t actually understand that response.
If you take a moment now, then you can probably recall a time when someone presented you with an idea to which your initial response was just discomfort. You did not know exactly why you felt uneasy with the idea. You might have even acknowledged that their explanation as to why it was a good idea made sense. But still, you simply did not like it.
This was your instinct.
It might have been right. But if you can’t explain it, then you will not have agreement. And just so you know, engineers can’t say things like “It just doesn't feel right to me” and expect that to be argument enough.
For a global engineer, this can be more extreme. If your instincts are based on experience in one context, then those instincts could be perfectly correct for that same context. But in another context, which is more likely to be experienced by a global engineer, the likelihood of it being corrects is much less.
You therefore need to dig deeper into your feelings, and turn them into sound logic.
Such feelings come from your unconscious, which holds numerous memories. One of these memories was triggered by the idea put to you. Something you experienced in some way suggests this idea would not work.
So your job is to delve deeper into your mind and find what it is that generates this feeling.
This is much easier said than done. You will likely need to sleep on it before you realise what caused this feeling. However, as you continue to put effort into accepting the feeling for what it is and then trying to extract what caused the feeling, you will get better at this. Eventually, you will find that you can extract this information in moments and with little effort – because you have created the mental paths that allow for easy flow.
The other side of this same story is when you come up with an idea, but others just don’t get it. And you don’t know how to explain it well enough – because it is instinct, and not clear thought.
This time, the idea came from the same place as did your unease with other people’s ideas. And without those mental pathways, you just can’t get the important knowledge out to create the argument you need to explain what you are thinking.
Once again, you need to work at it – until it eventually becomes something that happens in the moment.
Once you do this, you will:

1. Better explain your ideas – releasing the genius within.
2. Only critique ideas that have real issues so that good ideas are not dismissed – controlling the idiot within.

So next time you have that instinctive feeling, dig into it. And reveal the genius you have within or foolishness you need to excise. 

There are two types of people in this world – yes, only two.
Those who have their ideas while sitting on the toilet and those who have their ideas in the shower.
It is in one of these times of solitude and contemplation that they ponder things in their life and insights that have grown deep inside the unconscious psyche burst into the conscious mind.
It is painfully rare for anyone to be in the shower or on the toilet during any kind of review or brainstorming session. And even if they were, these sessions are group activities so there is no solitude – is it more the solitude than the place that is important.
For this reason, you are not likely to get all possible insights from an engineering team in any kind of group session. Be it a design review, a scoping activity, a brainstorming session, a risk analysis activity, basically, any activity where you want as many insights as possible to ensure long-term success.
If you are like me, then you have likely had that annoying experience where you think you have considered all issues and perspectives, documented them, assessed them, and then determined a path forward, only to have one or two people come to you with more ideas, issues, or perspectives.
You appreciate that they are sharing these, but it is still annoying that they come to you after you have done all this work.
You feel like you are going in circles and making no progress as you get dragged back each time. You might even decide to ignore them simply so you can progress – even if it is not the most optimised path you are taking.
The other thing that might occur to you is that while these are the extra ideas that are shared, there could well be other ideas that were had by people who don’t want to bother anyone – given the work that has been done.
It really would have been good to have these ideas presented earlier.
So what to do?
Factor this into the related activities.
Don’t ever assume any brainstorming session, design review, scoping party, gemba walk, risk assessment, or anything else like that will be done in a single sitting. Book one session, run it, give people a break – long enough to have been in the shower or on the toilet – say a couple of days – then have another session.
That way, you can be more sure you have conducted an exhaustive, yet not exhausting, consideration.
Don’t have time for such an approach?
Then simply accept you will not cover everything, and proceed at risk.
Best to factor these extra steps into your plans though.