Ideas are "cheap"

Everyone has ideas. You have been there. In a "brainstorming" meeting, ideas are following all seem great and will make the unit bigger, better and "more money". After the meeting, everyone goes back to their day job . . . until the next brainstorming meeting when similar ideas are discussed.

Have you ever had that feeling that if one more person brings you another great idea, you will go crazy. It is hard enough to get the stuff done on your current to-do list.

The point is ideas are "cheap" but implementation is hard. You must undergo real changes to the manager/workforce to make it happen!

In a book called "Management of the Absurb" by Richard Farson, it discusses how we stifle creativity and the change that needs to happen in the follow ways:
1. We play intellectual games
"define that term", "on what authority do you make that claim?"
2. We judge and evaluate
"it was better the last time" (he also mentions thta both managers and employees dread evaluations that performance reviews have come to have nothing to do with actual performance . . . I am not so sure about that, but could see if for some)
3. We deal in absolutes
"we've always done it that way" or "we dont make exceptions around here"
4. We think in stereotypical ways
"men are rational, women are intuitive". All of these stereotypes condition our reactions and make it difficult for us to see the possibilities for change.
5. We don't trust our own experience, and we train our employees not to trust theirs. We tell them, "you're not ready to take on that responsibility," and gradually they do come to disregard their own experience and defer to the judgement of others.

If you do the same thing in the same way, you will get the same results. If you have a "great" idea, you, management, and the organization must adapt and change to make it a reality, otherwise, nothing will be different.

Interestingly, the people who do implement change or are willing to change are the ones that sometimes end up being on the outside looking in