«  
  »

Plugging the brain drains

Picture credit: Cameron

Picture credit: Cameron

We urgently need to plug the brain drains. How many potentially great ideas are never shared and are lost to the world?

Even the largest thing in human endeavour begins with the smallest spark of an idea in a single mind. But not every small idea grows up. Most of our thoughts remain just that – thoughts. Very few of our ideas are ever shared and only a very small percentage of our shared thoughts are ever translated into persistent value.

But nothing great will grow unless we share our thoughts effectively; joined-up thinking needs well-connected minds.
Euan Semple recently blogged Thinking big about “small pieces“ and asked a great question: How do you bring about significant change using conversations, influence and sticky ideas rather than command and control and grand plans?

Euan’s piece described a conundrum of striking a balance between “top-down” thinking, i.e. starting with a BIG goal and breaking it down to smaller, achievable steps; versus “bottom-up” thinking, i.e. aggregating a larger ambition from the collaboration of contributors, each sharing their “smaller” ideas.

Of course, in the world of organisations, Euan’s conundrum should not be an either/or situation – the organisation should be the framework that facilitates the effective amalgam of top-down and bottom-up thinking.

But in practice just how often is the right balance struck?

How many of us spend our time dealing with the consequences of a costly [and destructive] imbalance between top-down vision and bottom-up practicality?

In a world increasingly desperate for new ideas, we should start by plugging the brain drains that allow masses of potentially great ideas to be flushed away – simply because we haven’t created effective frameworks for sharing and developing ideas.

I think we need a massive improvement in the quality of organisational thinking. Do you agree and how would you go about achieving improvements?

Email this post Email this post
  • http://dogpawz.com/ David ihnen

    You bring about great change by choosing an area to change that is not profitable – it is the only niche in which the slow (yet effective) pace of that sort of development has a chance because its not in competition with the capitalist. The pragmatic capitalist will always out-specialize and out-perform the idea sharers. The idea sharers are the buffalo, the capitalists have the guns. The former only prospers in the absence of the latter.

    • http://www.colin-beveridge.com colinb

      David

      that’s a really great analogy, many thanks for sharing.
      ColinB

  • http://www.xeequa.com Axel Schultze

    Great concept Colin. But David is the best testimony why it will be sooooo hard to realize. It may be a behavior of our young society or a brain defect – what ever it is but there are approximately 64,000 new ideas created every day. 99% of the creators are so afraid that the idea is get “stolen” like David indicated, that they never see the light of day. People rather die with their ideas than share it. As we (at least many of us) finally recognized to accept the concept of leaders and followers, profit in a company is good, sharing information is better than holding back – it may still need a few more generations to create an “open source” like idea pool where people contribute and others take it to the next level.

    My 2 cents

  • Catherine Uffen

    Externally: I have written into the service levels of contracts ongoing obligations on vendors to bring forward, at an annual meeting EVERY YEAR, new ideas that contribute to the profitability of that product or service for the vendor by contributing to the service levels measures (quality, volume, uptime, etc. – whatever you use to measure the performance of the vendor). When vendors lose money by failing to reach a specific target and having to award credits to the purchaser, they can win some credits back by creating and implementing a good idea (but not by just fixing poor service). The requirement of a presentation annually puts pressure on them to get their people thinking from the outside.

    Internally: There has to be a “safe-zone” for new ideas created and actively protected and fostered by a Executive Officer with thump.

    New ideas are usually multidisciplinary and levelling – they temporarily flatten organizations- the line operator with the great idea is an equal in idea creation with the VP, the Director of whatever and the software programmer.

    In-the-box managers and managers with agendas that are contrary to improvement (job retention of their staff – their pet project – their promotion) punish and exclude change promoters who can be portrayed as dangerous and destabilizers and complainers or dreamers.

  • http://www.jeanfarescouture.com Norma Fares

    Unfortunately, I agree with the comments of David and Alex. I only wish it “won’t need a few more generations to create an “open source” like idea pool where people contribute and others take it to the next level.” as Alex wrote. Some good people are just thirsty to turn their ideas –that could be seen as simple ideas but they are in fact complicated ones due to their 100% Human aspect in a severe environemnt– in to just real. Ideas that are challenging themselves require courage + a full, transparent and honest alliance between the group for the sake and the benefit of all i.e. the whole community.

    Makes sense ?

  • Rizwan

    I can’t but agree with Johan. Howeva not a very senior person like him. I feel like all the great people with Out of the box thinking capability & brilliant ideas now tend to be confined in their offices with cruise control e-mail mode. Typing the details & narrating the ideas in a foreign language is found hard for some of my colleagues with limited language profficiency.
    Moreover, people with extensive commmunication needs should be provided with facilities like blackberry, i-phones & i-speak that remove barriers of communication. This will help them organise time for their routine field work along with the communication & reporting tasks. Meanwhile, they should be given parrallel opportunities to improve their skills to overcome barriers.

    Besides, there’s a growing trend of manpower reduction foccusing on low wage category rather than fat salary category. Number of Typists, drafter, event organisers, coordinators & data analysts are reducing in the shrinking organisational structure. However, they are available on low wage, limited perk, contract basis, doesn’t effect budget quite much.

    In my meagre observation, generally half of the fat salary category people have the leadership, accountability & innovative abilities in a certain group, they deserve to be assigned the tasks of other half as well, since other half is practically just good enough to be advisors & executives. The problem generally witnessed with leadership capable class is that they aren’t very good hands on executors so they need to be provided with business support staff. This saves them time & energy to be more innovative & brainiac.

    There also exists a minor behavioural issue besides structural. The fear of getting insane opposition, theft of idea or idea getting ignored. There needs to be an anonymous blogging & logging facility for such ideas for review & appreciation, and approaching idea owner on request. And a formal infrastucture of bold, just, sincere & wise nominated focal points (in every organisation and community), who keep track of ideas & prevent their abuse & draining.

  • John Rudzinski

    I’ve been interested in ideation for several years . . . and, after an email outline to a very-higher-up in a company for which I once worked, a means for employees to enter new ideas and/or rate those entered by others for business value and execution viability was implemented.

    Brains drain for several reasons — often because companies do not value them.

    a) They may be kicked to the curb because they were assistants, secretaries, junior managers and supervisors whose value to the company was deemed less than a few cents a share. While this is the expected SOP for corporations, it is unfortunate; how many of the ‘x’-thousand folks being laid off to make investors feel better could have provided their companies with fresh, dynamic ideas for process, product or direction?

    b) They may have received no interest whatsoever in their ideas from clueless ‘leaders.’

    c) They may have watched, jaw agape, as an idea bounced up the chain gets accepted and implemented . . . yet neither reward nor recognition returns to sender.

    . . .

    EVERY resource, from mail-cart jockey to CEO, is capable of forward-thinking ideation. The ability to recognize and act on this, I think, can make any good company great, and give one helluva boost to the rest of them.

  • http://softarchit.com/community Don Lawn

    Oh Colin, my favourite topic.
    I will try not to froth at the mouth.

    Firstly, this needs an entire forum at least, not just a blog.
    Secondly, it needs to be split into internal idea promotion within the company, and external idea incubators.

    Internally:-
    Personally, I find that most senior management understand the value of new ideas to the company, but don’t have the time to deal with all of them directly.
    Opposing this is the vast majority of middle-management, who are solely focussed on the successful implementation of the current project, as the next step i their career path.
    Its human nature, but its selfish, and not in the employer’s best interests.
    This is particularly bad in the public service, and large organisations. smaller ones tend to value innovation more, and often base their business on it.

    In the public service in Australia, the buzzword is performance management, Its easy to get what you want. Just put it in people’s performance agreement.

    LEt me talk about Quality Management for a moment, because they have exactly the same problem, and have proposed the same solutions as I am going to suggest, and have generally failed. I’m going to propse them anyway, just so we can look at why they failed, and perhaps move on.

    Quality Management.
    ===================
    There is a known triangle of time, resources and quality. You can control any two, but the third one will float to its own level, dependent on the nature of the project and the other two.
    Typically project managers are rewarded for coming in ontime, on budget, or better. These may even be listed in their performance criteria. But I have yet to see (software industry – 27 years) Quality of product considered in the equation. Each project should be assessed for the right balance of these factors. They should be documented. The project manager should be rewarded according to meet the projects success according to the plan.
    But who does this? Usually a project gets handed straight from sales people to PM.

    In an attempt to rectify this, QM accreditation always insists that there be a parallel reporting path for Quality issues, straight to the Quality manager, who reports to the GM, bypassing the PM. And yet it never works in practice. I’ve seen PM’s declare themselves to be the QM for the project, obviously so they can throw out quality issues when they get in the way. Disgusting.

    Back to Innovation.
    ==================
    The obvious recommendation is that there be a similar path for innovation, that can’t be squashed by the PM. It needs indep[endent staffing and funding.

    How do we get this?
    ====================
    Another analogy is Enterprise Architecture. In 1986, Zachman suggested that we needed staffing and funding for Architecture in software. 10 years later, the industry started to move on this, largely due to the progress made by Rational corp – the three amigos. Now we have a flourishing architecture market in software development.
    Unfortunately we populate it with people who have ancient technical skills who have since moved into the people field, and most worked as account managers, project managers, consultants, etc. They are usually polical animals, very good at climbing the ladder, and more interested in their own careers than the success of the project or company. Trust me, I’m an architect and have spent years working with them.

    The real problem is that higher level managers recognise the need for people in the role, but don’t know how to choose the right people. They end up falling for those with the best interview skills.

    This is the same problem you will have with innovation specialists.

    1) GM must realise that the innovation stream is valuable and be willing to fund it a little.

    2) there should be a title of Innovation Manager. This may need to be a hat shared with other duties in smaller organisations, but it must not fall prey to the Project Managers.

    3) the right sort of person must be given this title.

    So the problem itself may fall back to writing a guide for GM’s on how and why to select an Innovation Manager.
    The Why is a financial spreadsheet.
    The How probably delves into personality types.
    I’ll address personality types in the next posting. This one is already too long.

    BTW, this probably won’t work, because it doesn’t work for QM, nor Enterprise ARchitecture, but its a good starting point, I feel.

  • http://softarchit.com/community Don Lawn

    Personality types.

    I will address this through Myers Briggs types, and DISC, as I am most familiar with them.

    The value innovation is a long-term, big picture thing, so the IM would need to be a strong N type.
    PM’s are largely S types. Practical. Deal with the definite issues at hand.
    Also, N types are only 1/4 of the population, with S types being 3/4.

    There is a generally unpublished fact about the S/N axis, that is fairly obvious in real life.
    N types are often capable of handling the details. as well, but just don’t want to, or can’t do it for long. They recognise the need for detailed work, and are thankful there are S types around to do it for them.
    However, strong S types can completely deny the validity of the N type big picture thinking. They genuinely believe that the N types are full of hot air, and that everything can be done just by drawing up lists and addressing the details.
    Never put an N type person (solely) under S type management. It destroys them.
    But most of the workface innovators whose ideas you want to catch will be N types, and their PM’s will be S types.
    To find the innovators, look for the ones that costantly buck the chain of command.

    Secondly, the IM’s job is not to come up with innovations himself, but to foster innovations from others. Thus he should be amn F type – Feeling – caring about other people.

    Thirdly, the IM would need to be a Percieving type – open to new ideas, rather than a Judgemental type whop won;t accept anything until it is totally proven and documented.

    Forth, Extraverted or intrverted. difficult, because the MBTI E/I axis is not fully intuitive (to me at least).

    LEts look at the two types we have narrowed down to so far. ENFP and INFP
    ENFPs are often referred to Champions. Perfect. They will Champion sonmeone else’s ideas.
    INFP are Healers, and really care ablout otherpoeple.
    These might not be suitable because they would want to promote every person’s ideas so as to avoid hurting their feelings. Not suitable.

    So, its ENFP.
    These are 8% of the population, and are more likely to be found in HR or people positions, rather than coming from the coalface.

    Summary.
    Innovation manager = ENFP – Chamption

  • http://softarchit.com/community Don Lawn

    The GM
    =======

    In order to get an IS position and system in place, you would need the support of a suitable GM or high level manager.
    Many are just going to refuse out of hand, until the rest of the industry proves the value of the idea.

    What sort of GM would be willing to listen?
    Hard to say. High level managers are largely “driving force” people, and don’t like to listen to other people much, but they may have an adviser whose opinion they trust.

    I think I’ll leave this for the readers to think about.