Dreamers aren’t intimidated
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Last week I was with a group of brilliant engineers and computer scientists from a cross section of large corporations. The subject was leadership in engineering and computer science, based on my concept of Innovation-Based Leadership ™.
It was a super-smart group, but something was amiss. At the start of our session, there was silence and skepticism. As the participants warmed up and developed the trust to share stories, I began to see a common problem. When these extremely bright computer scientists and engineers had been hired out of top schools around the world, they were hired because they were brilliant, free-thinking rebels. Yet over the years they had evolved into drones. Why?
It turned out that when they were brought into their respective companies they were placed in groups that had very specific, narrowly defined deliverables. Their job was to get that one task done. When they attempted to share their vision and out-of-the-box thinking, their group leads—people who were mostly concerned with hitting milestones to receive their bonuses—shut them down time after time. After endless meetings and butting heads with peers for hours each day, their entire job came down to delivering a piece of code. Vision and passion were exhausted. Over the years, these geniuses became like their superiors. Then they became group leads…and the cycle continued.
Turns out that in many corporate environments, attempts to promote critical thinking or propose radical ideas meet with intimidation. This is the typical path I see:
- Appeals to the direct manager are usually dismissed. Managers see their job security as threatened if this person’s idea gets traction. To protect their jobs, they bury innovative ideas.
- Appeals to higher-ups often wind up getting back to the direct manager, who accuses workers of “going over his head.” Sanctions or disciplinary action can result. Workers are suddenly not “team players,” which is code for not being a mindless conformist.
It’s too much pressure. Even great minds succumb. It’s easier to take the path of least resistance and become one of the Borg.
In afternoon session, I saw light bulbs going on over people’s heads. They recognized what I was saying. I told them, “You are brilliant, capable thinkers. You are innovators. Yes, you have a responsibility to the company that hired you. So do a great job, and part of that is making the impossible happen. Intimidation is for cowards. Confront it politely and dismiss it.”
Only cowards intimidate, because they don’t have the courage to make their dreams into reality. I remind my audiences that they are entrepreneurs. They have a responsibility to disrupt, then innovate.
By the end of the day, we had made great progress. What happened the next day, back at work? Well, I’m an optimist. First one spark in one company. Then ten. Then thousands.
I think when you’re first hired at a company, you want to impress and do a good job. Sometimes that’s at the expense of being on your best behavior and not stirring the pot–leading to a restricted outlook. Sometimes, if you’ve been at a company for a while, you’ve gotten boxed in and subconsciously take on the personality and behaviors of your directors, and at no fault of course, afterall, that’s how you’ve been trained.
The concept used at Google and other select companies of independent project and development time (on a regular basis) is great as it ideally allows for personal passions to integrate in a work setting. This may help keep interest and innovation levels up vs moving from project to project putting out fires.
More and more companies are now finding ways to foster innovation and free thinking at least among their R&D teams. While some companies are imitating Google’s concept of dedicated time for personal projects, there are also a few novel concepts that are being used to foster creativity among the rank and file employees including internal science fairs, skunk works competitions and virtual team projects that provide stretch opportunities. This is not a brand new concept though. 3M has been using a similar concept since 1950’s where employees got to work on personal ideas 15% of their time and they have had some phenomenal breakthroughs like the Post-It notes. Does that mean all companies should try and implement this approach? I don’t think the answer would be a resounding YES.
Having time allocated is one thing but as this blog post alludes to, the more important question is whether your organization has a culture of innovation that is essential to put this time to good use.
First, I’m thankful to have never been a part of an organization that stifles good ideas and innovation. Second, the issue at hand is corporate/organizational culture. Volumes have been written about creating/changing, and maintaining a desired corporate culture where leaders are effective, workers are inspired, and teamwork is inherent. Culture takes time to create and hard work to maintain. It starts at the top and takes on a life at the bottom. It is about hiring the right people, training & indoctrinating them well, and eliminating those that resist. The organizations that I have been a part of have worked very hard at both ends of the spectrum. Entry into the organizations was difficult, time intensive, and discriminating. Exit can be swift and calculated. Top down leadership is positive and persuasive. The assumption is that the desired results will be achieved as long as the underlying environment is positive.
“Why should I promote you? If I bring you to my level, you’ll get promoted before I will. Do you think I want to be here my entire career?”
My boss actually said this to me when I was asking why I didn’t get an interview for a entry-level management position. I couldn’t believe it. I think in these situations is it easy to get discouraged. You know you’re being held back, but there’s not a lot you can do about it. After all, you have a mortgage to pay. This frustration and discouragement can kill your will to innovate, create, and become better if you let it. I think this happens to a lot of people in corporate America.
But, instead of becoming bitter, you can use this as fuel. You can do something about it and refuse to be the victim of a corrupt culture. You may not be able to change it right away, but you can keep working on chaining your situation day after day. After a while, a lot of good things pile up and out of the blue an opportunity appears.
This very scenario happened to me. I was discouraged and even bitter at my bosses and company. But after I got done with my pity party, I went to grad school. I attacked it with everything I had, and used the disappointment as fuel. In the past 16 months I have learned and developed more than I ever thought possible. I am creative again. My brain is active.
14 months into grad school a new opportunity in a completely different area of the same company opened up. This opportunity never would have been available to me had I not decided to quit whining and do something about my situations. I accepted it, took on a new challenge, and was able to escape that toxic environment where I was.
Josh, I read your post and we have a lot in common. Do you remember when we met? You asked, “What are you doing here, you’re old?” I wasn’t miserable in my job, but I wanted more. I didn’t want to succumb to the naysayers who said, “you can’t get an MBA. it’ll be too hard. What about your job?” I took that negativity and used it to keep me going. Others saw my perseverance and that started the conversation that led to my new opportunity. People thought I was crazy and sometimes I did too. And when I was standing in Africa with my MBA classmates, I thought, “check it out, look at me!!” That is something that I will never forget and looking back on that, I hope that I will continue to have the courage to follow my dreams.
Do you have a dream that’s worth going after? or are you just going to slink back to your cubicle?
I think that a lot of what is mentioned here is covered by another blog post “Evolving from Delivery to Growth. Ideation, Innovation, Marketable Innovation.” Innovation is abundant in companies that foster the culture that allows free thinking. Unfortunately, not every company has this type of culture. This brings us back to the later blog post. In companies where there is not a free realm for innovation, the innovator must frame their ideas in a way that can get them noticed. Sometimes that means format, while in others it may mean just plain perseverance. I am willing to bet that most companies exist in the deadline/bonus/milestone culture. In order to be the disruptive innovator, one has to have the desire and patience to do so…