If innovation is a primary function of a business, what happens to your ability to innovate when new initiatives get torpedoed with...

· That will never work.  · It can't be done.  

· That's not how we do things. · If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If innovation is vital, how do we drive out the naysayers?  Or, if we got rid of all our naysayers, who would be left to do the work? 

It may help if we understand that negative attitudes are inherent to the human condition.  For parents to effectively discipline their children, repeated use the word "NO" is essential. The result is that often a child's first words are not "Mommy" or "Daddy", but "NO".  Then there's those nursery rhymes.  Jack and Jill went to fetch some water and what happened to poor Jack?  Little Miss Muffit introduced children to arachnophobia and Humpty Dumpty went to pieces.  With all that negative exposure in those formative wonder years, it's a wonder that anyone could develop a desire for risk taking required for innovation.  If our childhood conditioning wasn't enough, we have our daily news broadcasts and newspapers as obstacles to developing positive outlooks. 

Is it possible to drive innovation in the face of negativity? How do managers overcome negative attitudes inherent in any organization?  Why are some organizations so much more innovative than others?  Is there hope for the laggards? 

Attitudes can be changed, but it must be a conscious attempt.  Unless you make that attempt, because of that negative influence during the early stages of your life, your basic thought processes tend to be in terms of the negative - of what you can't do as opposed to what you CAN do.

When your naysayers utter those dreaded words: "That will never work", are they right? When they are, what happens to innovation?

• Are your managers committed and skilled in driving positive change? 

• Do they fight fire with fire? Or, are they skilled at developing and communicating win-win scenarios?  

• Do your managers ever reward failures? (Or, are you thinking "That will never work")

If you agree with Peter Drucker that innovation is a critical business function for your business, we'd be honored if you contacted us to discuss some innovative ways to turn your naysayers into innovators.

Subscribe to this newsletter | What is Working SMART?