Creating the Innovation Culture: Leveraging Visionaries, Dissenters and Other Useful Troublemakers

Chapter 8. The Manager as Political Handler

Innovators/dissenters can provide valuable ideas to the organization but they rarely have the political skills to get their ideas accepted and implemented by the organization. In fact, they are often proud of their unwillingness to "play politics." And yet, when playing politics means helping others understand the importance of the idea, including them in its development, and gathering funding and support for its implementation, these are activities critical to success. The manager of the dissenter can play this role and the skills he or she will need are outlined in this chapter.

A Cautionary Tale

A colleague consulting with a defense contractor gave me this story of innovation faltering at the last moment. Josh was a brilliant engineer who had developed a prototype for a new guidance system. He was ready to present the idea to the Board for funding. He was so excited about its possibilities that he began to believe the only acceptable outcome was total approval for full production. Anything less would be disaster.

The presentation went swimmingly. Just one small catch. To launch the system, a good deal of capital was required and it was too rich for the present. Josh was invited to resubmit his proposal at a later date. No promises were made, but a politically savvy observer could see that next time the project would probably get what it needed.

But for Josh, who was not politically savvy, this was executive incompetence at its best. They'd ...