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Surely you’ve run into this once or twice. Especially if you’re a creative. Making any new thing public exposes that thing to scrutiny. Your work could be perfect any way you look at it, and still you won’t find everyone content with what you’ve put out. The reason? Charles Kettering explains it best in two sentences.

“If you want to kill any good idea in the world, get a committee working on it.”

– Charles Kettering

Truer words have never been spoken. Ask the opinion of one person, and chances are they will perceive the original message of your work. Ask a group of people what they think, and any single impression will affect other initial perceptions. Before you know it, people are completely misinterpreting your work.

Extremes never win out in such situations. So the next time you have an idea and feel great about it, don’t ask for too many reviews. Just make it happen. Vision isn’t something many people are blessed with. Sometimes you just have to show them the end product to get their brains to click. Now for a few words about the man we’ve just quoted.

An American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents, Charles Franklin Kettering lived between 1876 and 1958, and was a founder of Delco, the Indiana-based automotive electronics design and manufacturing subsidiary of General Motors.

He was head of research at General Motors for almost three decades (1920 to 1947) and he is credited for several automotive developments, including the electrical starting motor, and leaded gasoline. You can thank Kettering for your fridge and the AC hanging on your wall, because he also invented the Freon refrigerant. The “Bug” aerial torpedo (considered the world’s first aerial missile) is also his invention. Moreover, he spearheaded the advancement of two-stroke diesel engines, revolutionizing the heavy equipment industries, including the locomotive industry.