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Research: Why Managers Ignore Employees’ Ideas

daftandbarmy

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Research: Why Managers Ignore Employees’ Ideas​


When employees share novel ideas and bring up concerns or problems, organizations innovate and perform better. But managers do not always promote employees’ ideas. In fact, they can even actively disregard employee concerns and act in ways that discourage employees from speaking up at all. While much current research suggests that managers are frequently stuck in their own ways of working and identify so strongly with the status quo that they are fearful of listening to contrary input from below, new research offers an alternative perspective: managers fail to create speak-up cultures not because they are self-focused or egotistical, but because their organizations put them in impossible positions. They face two distinct hurdles: They are not empowered to act on input from below, and they feel compelled to adopt a short-term outlook to work.

 
I think part of the problem, at least in a CAF context, is that sometimes the idea is addressing a tactical problem while ignoring the strategic impact.

I have had some extremely bright technicians come up with ideas on how to make our blinky lights allow us to kill people better; the problem is that it would blow our entire Vote 5 budget for the next 6 FY. Other times, the solutions proposed would see their individual issues resolved, while outsourcing them to another department or organization that would effectively hobble the moving parts in other areas of the Green Machine.

Being able to innovate is not merely coming up with ideas or solutions; it's triaging what will be helpful and what will hinder. Smart leaders and managers are able to balance both.

For as much as we have seen the effects of ignoring a good idea, I think we all have personal experience with dealing with the fallout of a "good idea" that then needed to be implemented...somehow....
 
Because employees are kulaks who's sole function in life is to work to produce wealth for their better? No?
 
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