Where interests and positions collide...
In a
sustainable world, we would always aspire to look after our ‘best interests’
whilst taking into account the interests of our wider community in our decisions
and actions. In the real world, it’s perfectly acceptable to look after our
‘best interests’ and if convenient, incorporate the interests of our wider
community into our outcomes. Whilst there is nothing wrong in essence with the
latter, I submit we need to question whether or not we are looking after our
‘best interests’ or simply protecting our favoured position when engaged in
decision making, which impacts others.
Why the need? Its
my view that we will never get better if we don’t accept the shortcomings of
our past decisions, no matter how good the outcome was. In honest self-reflection
and/or group reflection, we allow ourselves an individual and/or group chance
at a ‘do-over’ where we can try again but be better when we did before. After
all, if we blindly accept the status quo and lock into a position, we can never
get better at best and probably will get worse over time. However, if we learn
from our past and understand clearly what we did wrong as much as what we did
right, then our future vision will be informed towards formulating better ways
to reach our goals. So, with all that
learning and improvement, taking our wider community into account in our
decision-making becomes a transformational possibility!
"Positions V Interests"
One of the
biggest inhibitors to better solutions and more sustainable outcomes is when we
become entrenched in an ‘unmoveable’ position. The more we entrench our
position, the less flexible we become and the less flexible we become, the more
detached we are from our interests.
Picture this; a
company employs a manager to manage a team of Developers whom have a new graduate
come on board as a Developer Intern. They provide minimum supervision and the
graduate excels in getting to grips with systems, projects and delivers his
outputs on time making his Senior Developer and Manager happy. The Intern,
quite brilliant and feeling empowered by the positive feedback decides to float
an idea about Cloud technology that could disrupt current models but it needs
work. He tells his Senior Developer who realises the current system could be
thrown out if it succeeded and his manager privately agrees. They both decide to dismiss the Intern’s idea
reminding him of his role at the company.
Demotivated by
the experience, what does the Intern do? He keeps his mouth shut and does only what
is ‘expected’ of him. It’s patiently clear that when the Intern stepped outside
of what was expected of him, the management response was negative rather then
positive. This is where the divergence of interests and positions emerges with
the Senior Developer and Manager acting nearly instinctively to ‘protect’ their
respective positions, thus abandoning their interests and by extension, the
interests of the company, which benefits from an actionable idea that could
disrupt their own industry to their advantage. If they both had just reconciled
their interests to their positions, they would have seen the opportunities that
lay in the form of the Intern’s idea.
So, improvement
does not happen overnight, it’s a continuous process that nobody can afford to
overlook in my view. How do we get over interests V positions in an
organisational setting, thus allowing innovation to breath from any quarter and
be captured by the company for at least a process of evaluation?
Change from within – Individuals need to realise at all levels the
part they play in their companies success (or failure) and allow an innovation
idea to breath even if goes nowhere. The acceptance of ones interests first and
then reconciling them to their actual position is a must when opening up to an
idea for change. Positions often change when reconciled to interests making openness
to ideas at all levels a conscious choice to evaluate its possibilities and
embrace the spirit in which they were presented.
Organisational Change – Companies need to change their business
practices and structures so it allows everybody to give ideas the time they
need to be expressed and explored. They also need to formalise the capture mechanisms
for all ideas even if it’s a bad one. Recording all innovation ideas allow them
to be reviewed at a later date when elements change making a revisit of the
idea worthwhile.
Cultural Change – The top two points need to be deployed into a
culture making the culture more collaborative in nature and tolerant of bad
ideas as they are welcoming of good ones. There is nothing that kills
creativity quicker then a bad manager who aggressively and arrogantly dismisses
the thoughts and ideas of a subordinate! When people freely express their ideas
on work place innovation, you know you’re doing it right from a leadership and
a cultural standpoint!
It’s rewarding
being at the tip of an innovation curve, which sets a brighter future for the
company and all within its walls. Those who realise the best source of
innovation are its people will always build a culture that enables this
resource to grow, where process and innovation are based on the most valuable
element in situ on the platform, which of course are its people!
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