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Why Your Boss Will Crush Your Innovative Ideas (bbc.com)
dryriver writes: BBC Capital explores why good ideas people have in the workplace almost never reach the top decision-makers in a company. From the report: "Surely you've heard the plea from on high at your company: we want more innovation, from everyone at every level. Your boss might even agree with the sentiment -- because, of course, who doesn't like innovation? It's good for everyone, right? Yet when it comes to innovating at your job it might be better to lower your expectations -- and then some. Your idea is far more likely to die on your boss's desk than it is to reach the CEO. It's not that top managers don't want new ideas. Rather, it's the people around you -- your colleagues, your manager -- who are unlikely to bend toward change. Today, big companies that don't innovate face extinction. 'Companies are almost forced to say that they are changing these days,' says Lynn Isabella, professor of organizational behavior at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business in the U.S. But, 'it's not organizations that resist change; people resist,' says Isabella. 'The people have to see what's in it for them.'" As mentioned in the report, some of the key questions that the people whom you pitch your ideas to will ask themselves include, what does this innovation mean for me personally -- will it be more challenging or will it lead to more career opportunities, and what will it mean for my job -- will I get fired or will it be (or was it) worth it? Many times the answers to these questions don't stack up in favor of the innovation, Isabella says. As a result, the people who need to buy in don't push for change.
First thing you have to realise is that Systems Exist.
Systems follow very specific laws. The first Law of Systems is that all Systems follow the Law of Self Preservation. The second Law of Systems is that all Systems Fight Against Change within themselves. Systems follow the Law of Structural Conformity. Systems follow the Law of Growth and Development.
1. Systems Exist.
2. Systems Preserve Themselves.
3. Systems Fight Against Change Within.
4. Systems Ensure Structural Conformity.
5. Systems Grow and Develop.
All of these laws of Systems exist only to protect the Systems from being destroyed. Systems do not care about innovation or quality, they care to grow, to protect themselves from change that can cause self destruction, they ensure that all of their internal structures are organized to ensure self preservation, they grow just to become bigger and to have a better chance of survival.
Once you understand this you will understand why it is obvious and expected that systems prevent any type of innovation coming from individuals within the system.
It is also important to understand one more thing: when systems cannot cope with something, they stop it, they may destroy it, but if the fundamentals upon which the system relies are themselves flawed, the system reliance on those fundamentals also makes those systems ultimately vulnerable to destruction.
You can't handle the truth.
No it is all as shallow as fuck. If they can steal the idea from employees and claim it as their own and it makes them a lot of money, it goes ahead. If they can not steal the idea at the moment, they crush the idea and then try to steal it in the future and throw in so bullshit refinement and claim it as their own. If they can not generate enough money from the idea personally, the kill the idea, steal it and then create a new company built around it. If they can not profit from the idea, they kill the idea, then present a bargain to a competitor, who takes over and then announces the idea as their own. They also will temporarily bury ideas so they can up their shares and basically insider trade on the new idea.
Psychopath corporate executives only ever work for themselves and they will steal from investors, steal from other executives, steal from staff, steal from customers and steal from the societies as a whole.
How many executives demonstrate the peter principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... Lie, cheat and steal to the top, fuck it all up and disappear with a golden parachute. Just look at the M&M and Yahoo, lots bullshit and then failure. Only plan, making remote workers come into the office so she could steal their ideas and claim them as her own. Typical corporate executive business practice. That those ass hats are exceptional is just corporate executive marketing via corporate promoting main stream media because it is all about their ego.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
99% of the ideas workers submit which they claim are "innovative".... aren't. Usually it's completely pointless and has no benefit and quite frequently has drawbacks. Much of the time it's already been tried and failed.
Ideas are cheap and readily available. Good ideas are not.
Did they use only dysfunctional large orgs for their research? Many ideas "die on my desk" because they don't make sense. And it's not the idea generator's fault; he or she has a more narrow viewport into the business's operations and strategy. It's important to shoot bad ideas down in the right way, though, because 1 in 20 will be brilliant, and another 5 might cause you to think about something related that could work. So you don't want to discourage innovative people, which is naturally what you would end up doing if you're shooting down 19 out of 20 ideas.
The other thing I think is weird about this article is that the biggest problem with ideas is change management, and the biggest problem with change management is rallying the rank and file behind it. It's great to have this cool new flavor of agile that everyone should use, and I might agree with you, but how do we roll that out and get everyone to buy in? And how many such things can we roll out until people get tired of change? It's great to beat up management for "ignoring" ideas, but I think it let's the largest % of the company off the hook for being perennially resistant to change.
On one interview, a manager actually told me that I wasn't fit for the job because I was too innovative. They were looking for people to do more of the same, even if they had a lot of room for improvement, they didn't want it.
I work for a company that's reasonably large (8000+ people) and is consistently profitable, and we prize and celebrate innovation. People are encouraged to try out ideas quickly and if they fail, at least they failed fast. We have an intranet website where people post their successes and learnings. I personally know many coworkers who came up with ideas, implemented them, and made money for the company.
I am a technical manager of a team that specializes in automating manual processes and eliminating waste. I very intentionally leave room for my direct reports to innovate. If they come to me with an idea -- this is a critical point -- I treat my opinion as a HYPOTHESIS, not as absolute truth. After all, I am just guessing whether their idea will work or not. I'd rather have them build a minimum viable example to get some empirical evidence if their idea will work or not.
If I think their idea has no chance whatsoever of succeeding, I'll put forward my objections and see if they have good answers for them. This discussion is important. Sometimes they show me I am wrong, which is fine with me. (Nobody's perfect.) Other times my objections spur them to come up with a more robust idea.
Anyway, not all companies are pits of innovation death.