whack-an-idea

Tom,

As you say, it’s all about the culture. An independent businessman or solo entrepreneur will be prepared to take a chance on what might seem a wild idea. If it pays off, great. If not, well move on to the next one. Not many companies are prepared to tolerate “serial failure” like that.

People behave according to the rewards and incentives in the “system” they find themselves in. All too often, the people who get rewarded in big corporations are the ones who play the politics most effectively.

Thanks for another great cartoon. They always bring a welcome smile!

Kevin Francis

Arcade memories; Lynn I can see your image clearly!
It is about culture. Unfortunately, even in a Grow-an-Idea culture it can be difficult to not self edit ideas based on current situations, manufacturing capabilities, etc. In my working group, we have innovation meetings semi-regularly, and in those there is a strict no-editing of your own or anyone else’s ideas to encourage the ‘idea moles’ to come out of hiding. Often times the carziest ideas that would have been immediately shot down will spark really wonderful, actionable ideas that may never have come to light otherwise.
I think both cultures are important so that time and energy is not wasted on unrealistic goals, but they need to be seperated if there is to be a chance for something new.

Whack-a-Mole is truly a fun game, but only for so long… After a while, the mallet starts to get heavy and your fervor for “whacking” slows down as you realize you are mindlessly beating down something that has done nothing more than show its face.

Maybe someone should invent “Kiss-a-Mole” instead. Would need some good disinfectant between games; but in the same sense that we as management should be embracing (or “kissing”) new ideas, I bet it would be more fun, less tiring, and doubly rewarding to watch what happens when we do.

It seems to me companies that foster a “Whack A Mole” culture suffer from focusing on what is urgent at the expense of what is important. There will always be issues that crop up that need to be addressed, but the companies who are successful in the long run develop a strategy and spend the bulk of their energy executing that strategy – not diverting resources to address unrelated, but urgent requests.

Tom,

Great pic!

If I might add, from a customer service perspective, isn’t listening to each and every “mole” also important? I agree with with the other folks that growing an idea has to start somewhere. Let’s stop spraying and praying.

Greg

I agree that ideas often get pre-maturely squished and an organization is the worse off for it. But let’s give some credit to management in this regard: if every employee is off digging new tunnels for their own moles, then focus is missing. One difference between good and bad management is the ability to discern those moles that can lead to bigger and better things vs. those moles that just eat up your lawn and leave a mess behind.
Jay

Pretty Funny – I often find that that good ideas get whacked by senior management not becuase the ideas are not good – but because senior management does not want the result of what could come to light as a result of the idea. For instance taking steps to instill a rigourous program evaluation culture might seem like an obvious good idea – but from senior management’s perspective – having access to the results of good program evaluation implies that they will now be accountable to having to react. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and a lot of good ideas are shot down because senior management are too busy already to deal with anything new. Great cartoons – keep em coming – appreciated!

Tom,
As an innovation management champion at my company, I certainly noticed that some people have a ‘find a flaw’ mentality while others have a ‘build upon’ mentality and encourage almost any new idea they encounter. I’d argue that this in itself is neither good nor bad. It’s mostly about the receiver of this feedback – unsuspecting or unprepared intrapreneurs may get unecessarily discouraged or encouraged by feedback. What’s important is to train intrapreneurs on what makes a great business model and successful theories of innovation strategy so that feedback can be properly digested as either potentially disproving (the negative feedback) or proving (the positive feedback) a certain hypothesis. One can of course ‘teach’ everyone in the company on how to carefully deliver feedback and use the interations with intrapreneurs as teaching moments.. I’ve found it more practical to prepare the intrapreneurs for the various types of personalities they are likely to encounter and embrace all styles of feedback, because hearing the glass half-empty can add as much value as the glass-half full story – everyone in a given company usually wants what’s best for the group as a whole, but will stay true to their personality types.

Ricardo dos Santos

P.S. There are better ways to approach any feedback session in general, such as asking people how to make the idea better, not asking if they like it or not; And besides teaching entrepreneurs the proper frameworks for understanding and designing innovations, it is good to offer coaching on internal feedback interactions (I’ve initiated an internal startup bootcamp, for example, to deal mostly with the issue you pose here)

Lovely observation and cartoon. Organisations are complex adaptive systems according to many researchers and thinkers out there (Ralph Stacey, etc.). The system is a result of the things people do, and I have seen how this can have interesting effects in organisations. One department has a whack-an-idea culture and another nurtures new ideas and you see how one flourishes and another slowly turns into an ugly mess. There is a second aspect, and that is the one of not only nurturing ideas, but also to have an effective way to allow only the best of those the resources to be winners. It takes time for that sub-system to become self-regulating, without becoming whack-an-idea at lower levels. Open processes to move winning ideas forward seem to work best, and it relies heavily on mutual respect and trust. Have seen it in action and have seen it work, only once, but it can be done.