Old joke: "Where do you find a dog with no legs? Right where you left it."
There are two ways for an organization to kill a good idea: One is with bad management. The other? Good management.
That's the conclusion I came to after talking with Jane Linder, the author of the terrifically insightful book "Spiral Up . . . and Other Management Secrets Behind Wildly Successful Initiatives."
Bad management kills ideas boldly and blatantly. Linder put it this way: "I just had an executive tell me, 'Sit in our capital review committee, and if anyone actually dares to come in with a new idea, it is taken outside and beaten to death with sticks like it was a nasty snake.'
This is an effective deterrent to future ideas, rather like the practice of putting the heads of criminals on stakes along London Bridge.
Public execution of ideas might seem stupid, but then again, if your management goal is to have employees shut up and work, then, like the rotting heads, the smell is a part of its efficiency.
The more intriguing idea is that good management is, by its nature, an idea-killing machine. In her book, Linder offers a quick but telling example. Middle manager "Lee" is responsible for a meeting in which department heads will explain what they're planning for the coming year. The goal of the meeting is that managers will spot ways to support one another. Lee, knowing how dull such meetings have been in the past, decides to break up the typical "talking head" approach and open with a case study of what happens when departments fail to coordinate their efforts. She writes up the study, based on an internal breakdown, "laying out some of the conflicts and tensions fairly bluntly."
Sounds interesting, right? But prior to the presentation something awful happens: she gets managed. Linder writes: "Because this is such an unusual approach, she makes sure she gets her boss's approval. He waters down some of the conflicts in the case study, saying they're 'just too inflammatory.' Lee makes the changes and distributes the case study. The day before the event, Lee's boss's boss calls and suggests that she shouldn't actually facilitate a discussion at all. He recommends that Lee present her own analysis of the situation, then ask for questions."
The upshot is that Lee will be making another "talking head" presentation, circling back to the exact point she'd set out to avoid.
Before talking to Linder, I had supposed that this example was just that, an example she'd made up to explain the unyielding gravity of ordinariness. No. The woman not only exists, but is "feisty, smart, strong, and in a good position." Linder described the woman's talents, then put a sad shrug in her voice as she ended with a simple, "And still . . ."
Yes, we've all been there: And still. It's the offspring of What About, and OK But. Moreover, the case study of a case study was just an idea for enlivening a routine internal meeting.
What about true innovations? Management is designed to plan, to budget, and execute. The problem is that when it's confronted with a truly new idea, it's almost impossible to plan and budget.
The best ideas are explorations. (Speaking of exploring, picture Lewis and Clark going before a management committee. How long will it take? Don't know. How will you get there? Don't know. What will you find? Don't know.) You can't manage an exploration; you take not knowing as a given. What you hear explorers say is "we'll figure it out as we go," and "we'll manage." That latter remark would make a good starting point for the sort of endeavors that Linder describes - they don't get managed from above, but rather, they're self-managed along the way.
Considering what they're up against, it's amazing that any ideas turn into actual innovations. When they do, it's because someone went ahead without management. Linder says: "An idea can levitate. You go to a customer and say, 'If I could deliver a product like this, would that be of interest?' And the customer gets excited. And then you go to someone with a little budget and say, 'I have a customer for this.' And you get seed money. By the time management sees it, it's a going concern."
Despite all the obstacles, there are those angels of innovation who take an idea and turn it into an experiment. They simply have to start with this assertion: I'm not sure how it will work, but WE'LL MANAGE.
Dale Dauten is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at dale@dauten.com.
