Managers Are Commonly Poor Judges Of New Ideas. So, What Now?

“T-t-t-t-each me how to think, t-t-t-t-each me how to iterate…”

Take these two concepts and think about them:

• Harry Potter, maybe the most successful film + book franchise of the last 20–50 years, comes from JK Rowling experiencing ‘loads’ of rejections before she got a publisher.
• The main way we set up workplaces (oftentimes) is that you have a manager, and you submit ideas/concepts to that manager, and that manager can advance them up the chain or kill them.

In short, managers are usually in charge of moving concepts from “idea” to “execution,” even if the proposer of the idea will be the one spearheading the execution phase.

But — and here’s a big, Sir-Mix-A-Lot-style butt — what if managers are bad judges of new ideas?

The value of new ideas

There are definitely two minds on this concept. I oftentimes think the whole value of work at the employee level is finding a way to get your ideas to catch on, because without that — you’re probably grinding along on the same stuff all the time, and that can too quickly lead to a ‘heads-down’ culture where your boss thinks “He/she is a target-hitter! Love a good workhorse!” Once that…