New ideas can be like anxious guests – worried about putting their hosts to too much effort. But ideas need to be welcomed. Given the run of the house. If not, they’ll quickly make their excuses and leave.
In hierarchical organisations there’s a tendency to keep our new ideas to ourselves. To be inhospitable hosts to them so they leave quickly.
We do this because bureaucracies often dance hand-in-hand with blame cultures. Each management layer covers its back in turn cementing the status quo of ‘the way we’ve always done things around here’.
Instead we should be trying to foster creative thinking which welcomes new ideas. Building open climates which appreciate that not all ideas will work out but that the alternative to fresh ideas is extinction.
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