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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.
At my company, the CEO announced a monthly contest, with an award of $100, for the best idea to cut costs or improve efficiency. The first month, the $100 went a woman whose idea was to reduce the award to $50.
If you work at a profitable company, change is dangerous. The way that things were done before led to the current profitable state, any significant change risks upsetting that magic apple cart that nobody really fully understands how to build up again in the current environment, so don't do anything that might risk my next quarterly bonus, right?
If you work at an unprofitable company, that's not sustainable, innovate all you like, without a minor miracle (which will have little or nothing to do with any "innovative idea" and everything to do with external forces beyond the company's control) you'll be getting your layoff notice soon enough.
Most of what passes for "innovation" these days is really just illusion. We're better off without "innovations" like Uber, for example. The fundamentals of Uber are flawed, but their illusory "innovations" keep investors happy. Nevertheless, the fundamentals can't be ignored forever...
If you want real innovation, you need to have the person who is really doing the asking do the vetting directly, or hire an outside consultant to do it.
Lets say you come up with a great idea. It will cut your work load in half, effectively letting half the people do the same work. Assume that means your department is given slightly more work - but not double. So your boss changes his plans to hire two more people to instead fire one person. But he won't get the credit for saving the money, you do. And your boss's salary and power are based on how much money his department spends.
Best case senario, you get promoted. You are now directly competeing with your old boss. After he lost one of his best employee (as you came up with this great idea).
Worst case scenario, the idea fails.
Why would your boss promote your innovation? No incentive.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I despise the new MBA management style that all ideas have merit or that there are no stupid questions.
In my experience many of the people I've run across who complain that the company managers (or me when I was in that position) don't respect their ideas don't realize that their ideas are crap. They typically have a very myopic view of what the company does, what it needs or what constitutes a good idea. They have no real concept of risk, logistics, development overhead, basic physics, human nature or a slew of other issues. Their ideas can be frequently characterized as 'wouldn't be cool if'.
I rose through the ranks with a GED and no college education in an environment dominated by PhDs by having what turned out to be good ideas.
So sure, in some environments, good ideas are squashed by pointy haired bosses, but many times it's just a dumb idea.
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.
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.
It's execution that's hard. Sure, the person on the shop floor or in the cube farm might have an idea that seems great, but making that idea happen politically within the organization is very, very hard. People don't like change. That "good" idea might be somebody else's worst nightmare, and they're going to fight tooth and nail to keep it from happening. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just reality. That's why people who CAN change things become the leaders.
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.
Lets be honest, most of our innovative ideas are pure tripe. Why? Because it needs to be good for everyone, you, your department, the company and the customers. How many ideas are going to be good ideas for everyone, not many.
The mindset expressed in the posting here is a perfect illustration of exactly what is the article's main point: the all-out negative attitude that pervades the teams at floor-level; and, may I add, this is particularly common among SW engineers, believe it or not. I think we all imagine that we are clever and sometimes inspired thinkers who are excited about new technology and new ways of doing things - but are we really? I have seen it again and again: any article that tries to present a new insight to /. seems to be met with this hailstorm of negative comments, and I see it here again. There's the comments along the lines of "This is [obscenity of choice] obvious, what a load of shit", and the "Most [obscenity of choice] idiots who think they are so [obscenity of choice] clever are just [obscenity of choice] idiots" as well as the usual N-step list of reasons why it is never going to work (which is marked "5 insightful", of course).
This article is in fact rather well written, and I think the reason it receives so much negativity here is exactly because it hits too close to home for many people: You it is true, and most of us are almost instictively against anything new, however much we pride ourselves of being the opposite. That includes myself, I have to say, but I try to be conscious about it from time to time, and try to be open minded. In Denmark we call this mindset "the Law of Jante" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante); Terry Pratchett calls it "the crab bucket" (in Unseen Academicals, if you want to check) - the explanation being that if you observe a bucket full of crabs, you will see that some times one will start climbing out, and then the others grabs it and pulls it back down. "Don't think you are cleverer than us".
Can't you see it? People around you can't find the way out of the bucket, but they sure can stop you from escaping the misery and a future in which you are all dumped into boiling water. This is one of the main reasons why people hate going to work, and why innovation only ever happens if the company buys up another company that has already developed the innovation; but it does not have to be like that. This is one of the admittedly few occasions where the blame doesn't fall on incompetent management, but on yourself and the people around you; that means that it ought to be something we can actually change, by a change of attitude.
A very large company I worked for had this for about 3 months and the reward was a percentage of the money you saved the company. It was well thought out and ideas were all considered. The first 3 winners were secretaries of senior management and all their ideas were ones that senior management should have already implemented. The program was then canceled and I think the secretaries got screwed out of the percentage they saved.