Why Great Ideas Die on Managers’ Desks — and How to Save Them

Managers who recognize the importance of innovation to their organization are likely to urge employees to bring them fresh, creative ideas. Yet, many employees grouse that their best ideas are frequently overlooked, dismissed, or misunderstood by those very same managers. 

Ironically, managers themselves may be a serious impediment to innovation. Deeply rooted in their own domains of expertise, managers often struggle to recognize the value of novel ideas, particularly when such ideas lack precedents within their field.

Take the famous case of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, which developed revolutionary technologies, such as the graphical user interface and the computer mouse — innovations that were poised to redefine the future of personal computing. However, Xerox’s leaders remained focused on their own expertise in photocopying and printing and failed to grasp the value of those breakthroughs. The ideas were seen as intriguing but impractical and unrelated to the company’s core business. This reluctance to embrace ideas beyond its traditional domain ultimately cost Xerox the chance to dominate the personal computing revolution — a market that others, like Apple, eagerly claimed. 

Herein lies the paradox: The very novelty that makes an idea valuable to an organization and likely to generate extraordinary rewards is the same quality that makes it difficult for managers to appreciate an idea. Organizations thrive on the ability to disrupt norms and embrace the unfamiliar, yet managers’ mental models often favor the predictable and familiar. How can this critical dilemma be resolved?

 

Embracing Innovative Ideas: The Role That Manager Networks Play

Our research points to a powerful yet straightforward solution: Managers need to build diverse personal networks within their organizations and beyond. The link between having a diverse social network and being innovative is no secret — it’s a cornerstone of creativity research. But our findings add a twist: Diverse connections not only help employees generate more creative ideas; they are critical in allowing managers to evaluate and recognize the worth of employees’ ideas. Even the most brilliant ideas go nowhere if managers fail to see their potential.  

While our studies have focused on diversity primarily in terms of functional diversity — differences in areas of work or specialization — we have also uncovered evidence that other forms of diversity, such as age, gender, and cultural diversity, can offer similar benefits.