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Should the Power of Corporate Innovation Shift Away From Executives?
Lucas123 writes "At the Consumerization of IT conference in San Francisco this week, several speakers agreed the next big shift in the corporate establishment will not be technological but social, away from top-down responsibility for innovation and change. Businesses are on the cusp of a leadership revolution because millennials moving into the workforce are 'the most authority-phobic' generation in history, according to Gary Hamel, a management educator at the London School of Business. Not only should low-level workers be incentivized for being creative, they should be given the power to spend corporate money on research and development, Hamel said. By doing that, companies will diversity their experimental capital. 'If you don't do that, you'll never change that innovation curve,' he said. Hamel was not alone. Kevin Jones, a consulting social & organizational strategist for NASA's Marshall and Goddard Space Flight Centers, agreed that traditional corporate culture needs a radical shakeup. 'The values of management today are different from the values of the social enterprise and different from the values of the consumerization of IT — and they're not mixing very well,' Jones said. 'That's where we're having the battle.'"
The most authority phobic generation in history? Really? Anyone forget the 60's? Come on, folks. People have not fundamentally changed. Every generation thinks the younger generation is the most authority phobic generation in history.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
We all have had bad experience with managers but in my experience, good managers are needed. for every one terrific idea there are 5-10 terrible ideas...You cant just have new grads tossing money around without thinking thru how it will work, how much it will cost and how much money it will make and/or time it will save...
If you can prove that your idea is a good one, any competent managment team will go for it, but too many young people just want to put things in because they are new and shiny, that doesn't work so well in business...
I recall a few of my stupid ideas as a 22 year old, I had many outlandishly stupid ideas but I had a great manager who listened to all my goofy ideas and told me why they would not work, then one day I hit pay dirt and came up with an idea that would be able to automate so much of the IT operation that we would not need to hire some temps or interns for mundane tasks. That resulted in a nice bonus but more importantly a great lesson in how to think like a business when considering IT gear/platforms/initiatives.
Good managers are not disposable
Exactly why is it that startups have greater R&D and innovation? because they lack stodgy upper management that slows down most innovation.
Why do most startups fail? because they lack experience to properly capitalize on those innovations.
If businesses were honest with themselves they would look at the total dollars spent on just management and trim the excess fat from the upper layers.
I Have always found it amusing that a business would fire thousands of people to save a couple of million, instead of firing one or two upper managers to save the same amount. All Upper Management really does is deal with the personal issues of the lower employees(Herding cats is easier than herding programmers).
Having been in a middle management position I spent most of my time dealing with people who got degrees but failed kindergarten. They never learned how to talk to others to deal with their issues, they never learned to not say anything when they don't have anything nice to say, and They never really learned that blaming the wrong person just because you don't like them doesn't solve anything.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Corporate-speak bullshit keywords...
I could hardly get through the summary without puking.