Good Ideas From Employees | 8 Surprising Ways You Block Them
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- Good Ideas From Employees | 8 Surprising Ways You Block Them
I have to admit that I have not met a small business owner, a CEO or a leader who ever claimed to NOT want good ideas from employees.
As a matter of fact, you vigorously declare that you genuinely want to hear new ideas, even when those ideas challenge the way you currently do things or come from “unexpected sources.”
But as I do more and more consulting work, I’ve been noticing an interesting pattern to how small business owners respond to good ideas from employees.
Even as you claim to welcome these good ideas, when they show up, time and time again, you end up blocking them.
However, in all fairness to you, though, your problem is you don’t even realise you’re blocking these ideas in the first place!
And that’s a real problem…
You see, the way you block good ideas from employees is not only by outright verbal rejection.
Blocking can come in the form of your management structure, the culture of the business, how assertive you are and even how badly you have been burnt by past “good ideas.”
And that’s a real problem….
When you constantly fail to consider really valuable employee ideas, the negative effects can spin off into other relations and relationships within and around your business.
How you unknowingly block good ideas from employees:
Research on innovation and organizational behavior suggests that ignoring or resisting ideas or suggestions is a widespread challenge rather than an isolated problem.
Therefore, when you can understanding how you are blocking smart ideas, I am sure you will want to do something about it.
So here are 8 surprising ways you unwittingly block the very ideas you need to improve your business.
1. By wanting to avoiding controversy
The hallmark of a good leader is to manage conflict and resolve controversial issues quickly. However, this does not happen in many businesses, including small businesses.
In my experience, small business owners avoid controversy first of all because they are insecure. In addition, they find it upsetting or they just don’t have the stomach to interrupt the apparently smooth running of their businesses.
Because of this, many of you see ideas about how to do things differently as controversial and quickly debunks the ideas, instead of engaging the people offering them so you can bring about change.
So the idea remains just that – a good idea.
When this happens enough times, your staff becomes frustrated, confused and they stop trusting you. And as to be expected, they stop sharing any ideas or suggestion with you.
Meanwhile, you are trying everything you can to get suggestions from them to fix problems – and you don’t understand why you’re not getting any.
A stalemate, if ever there was one!
2. By “not having time” even for good ideas from employees
Yes, I know you started the business. I know you’re passionate about it. And yes, at the end of the day, all roads lead to you.
But the success of the business often requires you to delegate those things that can be dealt with by your team.
When you do, you make time to work on important things, like reviewing and implementing intelligent ideas.
Good ideas solve problems. But when poor time management and bad prioritizing prevent you from recognizing them and using them to solve your problems, the whole business suffers.
Equally as bad, when your employees realise that you never “have any time” to work on even their simple ideas, they too won’t make the time to suggest any.
3. By being reluctant to change the business culture
I hear it all the time. People are afraid to change. What I observe however, is that people are really afraid of the loss or the pain associated with change.
In a small business, the hardest and most unwilling area to change is the culture. This is true, even when the owners seek and pay for professional help.
But why is culture so hard to change?
Culture is the way you do things. It’s what you support, what you tolerate, how impartial you are. It’s how you treat your staff, the way you treat your customers…
Your culture is how you do business!
Very often in small businesses, that culture is is strongly supported by a healthy dose of Founder’s Syndrome. When your default position is “this business is my blood, sweat and tears,” you guard it jealousy – even from good ideas from well-meaning employees.
Consequently, you instinctively regard any ideas which require meaningful change as a threat to “the way we do things around here.”
As a matter of fact, it is common to find that the only ideas that you readily accept and do anything about, are the ones you come up with.
Once your employees realise this, they are going to be very reluctant to share any ideas or suggestions – not when they expect you to write them off without even hearing them.
In the final analysis, if you are not ready to make big changes in the way you do things, nothing changes.
4. By having a business structure based on silos
The Silo Mentality as defined by Indeed.com describes the situation when certain departments or sectors do not wish to share information with others in the same company.
In the case of small businesses, the problem is usually as much to do with the structure of the business as well as the owner’s behaviour.
As an example, let’s look at a business with more than one branch or location.
The longer it took before the second outlet was set up, the more the people at the first location behave like demi-gods when the second outlet comes along. This is how a silo is created.
Silos are born when the business has many poor systems, non-aligned “silo” priorities, insufficient support staff and poor leadership.
So, in my example, you find that the needs of the “headquarters” are met first. They “forget” to share important information with those at the new location and other things fall through cracks.
You will also have poor communication at all levels and in every silo. The decision-making process will be quite ineffective and an incredible amount of blame will be flying around.
Predictably, no ideas from the new branch are considered or even respected and they (the employees) are marginalized.
Now everyone in every silo is frustrated. And when you attempt to confront and control the situation, somehow it becomes even worse. Nobody is sharing any suggestions with each other and with you.
So, the business stagnates and begins losing money…quite the opposite of what you intended.
5. By having an ineffective management style
In another life, I worked for an organisation where the leadership was elected rather than appointed.
When leaders get their position by popularity or favour rather than ability, they forever feel threatened. This means that they often act in their own self-interest instead of the interest of the organisation or the members.
I watched with alarm, as many sensible ideas were rejected or undermined (many of them were mine) just because the employees did not play the suck-up-to-me or butt-kissing games.
Unfortunately, many small business owners behave just like this.
Here’s what I mean.
Yes, you have a large capacity for risk and this led you to start the business. BUT it does not mean that you’re the right person to run that business.
Some of you seem to know this instinctively and hire talented people, get out of their way and let them do their work, as well as work their magic for you.
On the other hand, too many of you take the position that this is my business! I know what’s best for it and if you’re not with me, you’re against me.
In a toxic workplace like this, it’s extremely difficult for you to get the great and innovative ideas you need to take your business forward.
You see, when you are short-sighted and self-protecting, you will perceive many ideas for change as a challenge to your leadership or intended to undermine your authority.
6. By disregarding information you don’t understand
Let’s be fair here.
Small business owners do trust information that they do not understand from professionals – accountants, lawyers, consultants – for things outside their expertise.
But for other situations, the approach is different.
You believe you understand the decisions you need to be making, the information you need to make these decisions and the form that information should take.
Therefore, when you get some information you don’t quite understand, you ignore it and make the decision from your gut.
You seldom check to determine if the information is likely to be inadequate or insufficient as well as incorrect. You just disregard it.
Unfortunately, that is the same approach you take with good ideas from employees. But in this case, you go further and disregard the sources of the ideas.
When you do this enough times, your staff is reluctant to share information, let alone valuable ideas.
Sadly, you cut yourself off from the very ideas you need to improve your business.
7. By not realizing how “size” is a barrier to accepting good ideas
Size matters – the size of the business, the size of your budget, the size of you team and of course the size of your leadership capacity.
It is a barrier that impacts both you and your employees by the very fact of its existence.
You see, because of your small size, with your limited resources (time, people and money), you have to be highly selective about which ideas you can implement.
Again, because of the small size of the business, you are afraid that some employees might feel slighted by your selections.
Or, you believe that the way you allocate resources might offend some other employees.
So, you procrastinate about taking action on any good ideas from any employees.
You claim that you don’t have time (barrier #2) but in reality, you’re acting out barrier #1 – avoiding controversy.
This leaves your staff demotivated, frustrated and pretty convinced that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing!
Against this background, even if you were paying $5,000 for a single idea, not one would be forthcoming.
8. By outright rejecting the source
Look, every business has existing ways of doing things – how they deliver customer service, their marketing, how they manage their people.
But as the business grows and changes, these processes sometimes become ineffective and inefficient and SHOULD be changed.
The problem is, the need for change is often noticed by new employees, especially at the management level. Why? They bring fresh eyes to the business.
Fresh eyes will quickly notice your blind spots and if those eyes belong to an employee worth the money you’re paying them, they will point them out.
What happens next?
You resent this “new comer” waltzing into your business and telling you what to do. And you communicate your feelings in a thinly veiled manner. After all, “that is not how we do business around here!”
The new employee soon decides that suggesting anything new to help this business is not worth it, since the boss is not even good at listening. So that new staff member retreats into silence, with all the exciting new ideas that the business really needs, lock in their head.
The surprising aspect of this barrier is that the new employee now becomes a demotivated conformist or another last-in-first-out employee, in a totally inflexible business.
How to create conditions to receive good ideas from employees
So…now you have been introduced to the barriers that can exist to block innovative ideas, what can you do about this serious problem?
As a leader, you can remove the barriers and create conditions to receive good ideas, by addressing both structural and people obstacles that prevent innovation from flowing freely through your business.
Here are a few suggestions:
1. Create psychological safety first
When you consistently block good ideas from employees, they will be fearful of sharing any ideas – worrying about being criticized, ignored, or blamed when things don’t work out.
You need to create a workplace that is psychologically safe.
In such a workplace, you need to deliberately encourage experimentation, celebrate intelligent failures, and respond to all ideas with curiosity rather than immediate judgment.
And when an employee shares an idea that won’t work, focus on what’s valuable in their thinking rather than why it’s wrong.
2. Establish methods for communication ideas
Some businesses have convoluted and inflexible methods of communicating.
When this is the case, many great ideas get lost in layers of confusion and never make it to where they can be acted on.
So you want to establish practical methods of sharing ideas. This is when anyone can submit ideas and be assured that each idea is evaluated on its merits and not by who submitted it.
For example – an anonymous “ideas box” can work in this instance.
Support this by rotating who presents concepts in meetings, and actively soliciting input from quieter team members or those in less influential roles.
3. Remove resource constraints that kill ideas before they start
Many employees don’t share ideas because they assume (or have heard) there’s no budget, time, or support to pursue them.
Address this by setting aside dedicated innovation resources – even small amounts – and create clear processes for how ideas can access these resources.
You can even consider implementing “innovation time” where employees can explore ideas during work hours.
4. Change how you respond to ideas in real-time
Many employees will tell you that it seems to them that when they are sharing new concepts, their boss listens only to explain why it won’t work.
As a leader, your best bet is to start from a position of discovery instead of judgement. You should listen attentively and ask questions such as:
“Why should we solve this problem?”
“How would this work in practice?”
“What would we need to test this?”
“Are you willing to help make it happen?”
Be sure to end by thanking them and sharing what you can do next to make the idea a reality.
5. Make idea generation part of the way you do business
Having a culture of business-wide generation of ideas is a great way to not even have a barrier to great ideas.
For example you can explicitly include “contributing innovative ideas” in job descriptions and performance reviews.
You can recognize and celebrate people who generate ideas, even if only some are implemented. This ensures that generating ideas is everyone’s responsibility rather than something only certain people do.
Your next “good ideas” steps
You are now aware how you can unknowingly block good ideas from employees in you workplace.
You also know how you can create a workplace in which good ideas are not only welcomed, they are encouraged.
So what can you do next?
Use the “blocking” information in this post to see if and how you are blocking the very ideas you need.
And if you are, use the “removing” information to change the way you respond to shared ideas.
If you start here, you place yourself in that small circle of people who are smart enough to not only welcome ideas, but create conditions which makes it easy to do so.
The question is…will you be willing to implement any of the above ideas…as soon as possible?
Lorna Barrow
Lorna Barrow excels at leading small business owners to get the breakthrough they are looking for in their businesses! She unleashes her 25+ years of small business experience and knowledge on your business, which was developed from working with small business across the Caribbean and beyond. This ensures you get the solutions that are right for you and your business...
