Indifference, Hostility, Isolation and Other Obstacles to a Healthy Innovation Environment

In most companies, just about all the cards are stacked against the nurturing of innovation, especially the kinds of new ideas and disruptive innovations that generally lead to major changes in the marketplace and within the business. 

Is that too pessimistic a view?  Perhaps.  Let me discuss some of the behaviors I have observed through the years in various companies, which have convinced me how difficult it is to create the proper environment for innovation to flourish.

Indifference.  While just about every CEOs and senior executive of a company will pay lip service to innovation, many do not really mean it.  It is not because they are not good, smart and highly competent people.  It is just not part of their DNA.  Of course, they mouth the words – it would be politically incorrect for them not to embrace innovation. But they do little beyond that. 

Why is that?  The majority of executives make it to top positions by being very good operational managers: meeting sales objectives, improving products and services to keep up with competitors, supporting existing customers and acquiring new ones, managing mergers and acquisitions, achieving the required financial results quarter after quarter, and so on.  These management jobs are very tough and getting tougher, given our rapidly changing, fiercely competitive, global business environment.  Being a good manager takes very hard work, attention to detail and organizational discipline. 

But as executives rise up in the organization, other skills become increasingly important.  You need to transition from being a manager to being a leader.  At a recent lecture at MIT, Lou Gerstner succinctly articulated the difference between management and leadership. 

Management is about business results and processes.  Leadership is about people.  The key quality you need for good leadership is passion - the urgency to attack and solve the complex problems that all organizations face.  To do so, you need to be surrounded by highly talented people, and you need to find a way to transmit your passion to them, so they will buy into your vision of the future, perform at the highest possible levels and come up with innovative solutions to the challenges of achieving the vision.

When skies are blue, a company might be able to cruise along with top managers who are indifferent leaders.  Such managers are typically executing tactical, incremental strategies, where the critical ingredients are good, disciplined management as well as operational excellence.  But once the skies begin to darken, as they inevitably do, such managers will get into deep trouble, and often end up taking the business down with them.  Their most talented innovators and strategists, those whose skills are now badly needed to help set the business on the proper course, have either long departed or become so disenchanted that they have nothing left to give.

Hostility.  In general, managers who do not actively encourage new ideas and innovations in their organizations do so because of indifference.  It is just not who they are.  They will typically listen politely to your new idea, provide some encouragement and offer good advice.  If they are being honest, they will tell you that they barely have the time, energy and budget to help much beyond a pat on the back now and then.

But some managers - fortunately, a relatively small number, in my experience - go beyond indifference.  Their initial reaction to any new idea is negative, if not downright hostile.  This is particularly true if the idea comes from someone outside their own organization.  They tend to be poor team players and autocratic. 

Some of them also exhibit characteristics that many of us would associate with being a bully.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines bully as "a blustering, browbeating person; especially one habitually cruel to others who are weaker."  Wikipedia's entry says, "Research indicates that adults who bully have personalities that are authoritarian, combined with a strong need to control or dominate.  It has also been suggested that a deficit in social skills and a prejudicial view of subordinates can be particular risk factors.” 

These words pretty much fit the behavior of the corporate bullies I have met.  Typically, they have achieved their high management positions because, despite their poor interpersonal skills, they are very good at other parts of the job.  Sometimes, they are excellent innovators themselves, but given their autocratic tendencies, innovation to them is a one man/woman show.  Collaborative innovation is not for them.         

I would further add that another reason people with such behaviors are tolerated by upper management is that they generally are very respectful of hierarchy and authority and treat those above them very differently, reserving their worst behaviors for colleagues and subordinates.

Such hostile behavior is particularly detrimental to a healthy innovation environment.  People championing new ideas, especially if they are potentially disruptive new ideas, are doing so by going against the grain of what the business is currently doing.  Rejection is painful, especially coming from people in positions of authority.  Senior managers can nurture those new ideas through positive words and actions, or they can stop them on their tracks by being overly negative and combative.

Isolation.  I strongly believe that innovation is a collaborative endeavor, a team sport.  The 2004 National Innovation Initiative report observed that "[Innovation] is multidisciplinary and technologically complex.  It arises from the intersections of different fields or spheres of activity."  That is why it often takes a group of people that are not only highly talented but bring diverse skills and points of view, in order to successfully tackle the kinds of complex problems we are increasingly facing in the 21st century. 

But perhaps even more important, a collaborative approach to innovation helps provide the energy and emotional support that new ideas need in their very early stages.  New ideas are almost always rough and ill formed at first.  In my experience, nothing works better than bouncing the ideas off other, supportive people.  This back-and-forth dialog is one of the most important ingredients to help properly shape the idea into something more concrete, understandable and actionable, at which point it is more ready to face the tougher challenges and criticisms from line management and others in the organization. 

The best people to bounce ideas off at these early stages are typically colleagues within or outside the company, depending on the nature of the problem.   This is why isolating people in organizational silos is one of the biggest obstacles to innovation.  Companies that are serious about innovation do everything possible to break down silos and encourage communication and collaboration across the organization and beyond. 

Fostering innovation is very hard, especially if the innovation is disruptive in nature.  A spirit of innovation and collaboration does not come naturally to an organization.  For such a spirit to take hold, it must become an integral part of the company's culture.  None of this is easy, but it is what a company must do if it truly wants to create a healthy environment for innovation to flourish.

Comments

[Brian O'Donovan]

> You need to transition from being a manager to being a leader.

I heard a recent lecture in which the lecturer gave the opinion that most organizations have too many leaders and not enough managers. His opinion was that the top people in the organization need to show leadership, but the middle level people need simply to be managers carrying out the vision of the leaders at the top and having too many people with "leadership ambitions" caused tension in the organization.

I am not sure what to think of this opinion. I suspect that he was simply being provocative. What do you think?

[Frank Paolino]

I tend to think of innovation as being driven by a monomaniac, to use Tom Peters' term. If this monomaniac and his vision is right, then he can lead a team to build and deliver the innovation. Large organizations tend to discourage people with obsessive personalities. Once this person has obsessed about a new innovation, then a team can help bring it to life, and large organizations become a very good thing, in terms of refinement and of course market exposure.