Barrier:
"A New Idea, a Young Leader" - Won't Simply work

Organizational inertia perceives not just young leaders but any innovative idea as a threat to the vested interests of the status quo.

One potential part of the solution is to decentralize power. With power less concentrated, organizational inertia is easier to overcome. Another is to fly under the radar with a skunk work.

Cedric's comment is spot on. You will never change a culture in spite of leadership. Leadership embodies the culture and values of the organization.

Hi Vivek,
Anybody who advises you to combat this barrier by changing your company's culture is misleading you to a dead-end : you don't change a company's culture despite its leaders. The leaders are core to the culture of your company and you have to make do with it.
However, the challenge you're describing can typically be addressed by presenting the business idea as a pilot or experiment. If your dinosaur-leaders see the novel idea as a threat, it's because another narrative dominates their mind. Don't rape their soul by violenting their established narrative. Did you ever try to convert somebody of a different faith than yours ?.. Yes, it's not a very productive way to spend your energy, even if you believe you have the right arguments. So, treat your leaders as if they were the priest of a religion you don't believe in. Either you can introduce novel ideas to them as part of their established narrative (use your imagination to find a link), or you can introduce them as explorations or experiments that play on a different plane than the established narrative (like monks can be happy farmers). In any case, your novel ideas will no longer be seen as threats to the established narrative and it will buy you time to start creating an alternative narrative that can possibly convert them.
Good luck !

This is a very common situation and more so in the public sector with bureaucratic set up. I was facing such a situation in my own organization and this helped me to evolve. “First understand and then be understood to build trust” was what I also started off with. And I understood that my idea is going to go down the drain because most of the seniors were about to retire in few years time and were here just to pass the remaining time. They were very tightly boxed. This situation has had its huge influence while shaping another idea “Thinking out of the box is not enough . . . Dissolve the box and reposition to lead the hot crowded and the dynamic flat world” and it worked.
We respond to situations through stereotyped thoughts which come automatically and compulsively and we have no or very little choice. Our hidden fear, ego, limited understanding of oneself and attachment with our mental boxes do not allow us to remain open. Even when we think “out of the box” these vicious traps find a place in our decisions polluting, limiting and infecting them. But when we “dissolve the boxes” we free oneself from these traps and are open to change gracefully.
We have also designed a patented tool called “UQ Matrix – a tool for thought designing and decision making” which will allow democratic decisions making and which will create a fertile organizational culture to put the organization in the learning curve. This will bring in more objectivity.
Our mental boxes only translate into organizational bottlenecks or hierarchical barriers. And once mental traps are dissolved by sensitizing people with the idea of Dissolving the boxes all problem diffuses.
For more details read “Next What’s In”. It is also listed in the Amazon in the Kindle/e-book format.

This type of challenge is not unique to just younger employee's but to everyone who does not have a strong demonstrated track record within an organization. It come down more to functions of trust and reward systems. If the organization has a legacy of being hierarchical and searching for witches when things go wrong the dinosaurs may honestly believe they are protecting (themselves & others) from career limiting decisions. Consider seeking out an understanding of why senior leaders do not believe in the idea and be prepared to logically overcome the barriers they identify with conversations vs.communications. They will use 4 primary defensive challenges: a) Mudding the conversation with history & opinions b) Requesting that you form a committee to further discuss the idea c) Create a sense of risk based on unfounded senarios d) Generate ridicule based off of a,b, & c. The key is to prepare in advance for each of these options and engage in a welcome debate that is based on respect, trust, and a common purpose. Additionally if you can segment out some dinosaurs in a one on one basis in advance of the discussion, that may help you by 1) practice focusing your conversation 2) supporting your passion and purpose.

Seek 1st to understand and then to be understood and you start to build trust.

don

Here are a few ideas that may work:

1. Enlist external "allies"

a. today evey industry is covered by analysts who are considered experts in the industry ; your top management will also respect these folks as they are significant influencers. Try to see if you can find analyst material / publications that you can quote to support your case. For example, there may some analyst who has written about the benefits of a product company introducing services.

b. Try to Collaborate with external Academics (this will usually not be a problem from an IPR angle). Senior management often lends its ear to influential academics.

c. Get external recognition - this always carries great weight. Seek permission to publish / present this idea at industry fora. This will also be a test - if management resists permission to present it externally it may be a sign that they truly think it's a valuable idea - you can then use that fact.

2. Recognize that Not all in senior management will resist your idea equally. Find who's relatively more amenable to this idea -maybe its the SVP charged with new markets / businesses. Enlisting the support of such a person is very powerful. If you can connect this idea to that person's PIs (performance indicators) it will be a clincher.

3. Connect the idea to the company's strategic intent, as expressed in stategy and vision statements, 5-year plans etc. Even if a direct connexion is difficult, some connexion will help greatly as senior management's mind map is described by these long term plans.

Good luck !

I would start by translating the project into something the senior managers could relate to. Financial projections and strategic analysis (SWOT, industry life cycle, etc) to start. But also I would encourage this person to find an ally or mentor within the senior team. Not all dynosaurs are alike.

A full understanding of the roadblocks, as they are understood by the senior team is key to build a propossal that adress the risks (perceived or real).

Spreadsheet the model with reasonable guesses. It is quite easy to represent the likely earning potential of a newborn. Actuaries do it all the time.

If the numbers don't give the ROI the number crunchers want, list all the intangible advantages and associate that list with the difference of what the model shows and what the model needs to show.

Give examples of trends in other market places where the shift from product to service has been essential. Examples of early movers being successful and late movers demise in the market place for instance.

I've got a bit of products-to-services experience and more than my share of attempts to get senior executives to try new things. Both challenges here may be approached the same way, with a caveat on the latter.

Services businesses are inherently different from product businesses, from sales to delivery to metrics to management. Creating a new services business sounds like a way to excite the troops, and many will volunteer, but few will have the very-different skills needed to make the new business succeed. My research turned up precisely zero instances of a services business being built successfully using people, processes, etc. from the inside. I therefore surmise that it's a necessary condition for the nascent services business to be a separate P&L, run by an experienced *services business* executive (often necessarily an external hire) with the power to hire and fire. A separate organization also has the advantage that senior executives may perceive it as less of a threat: it's off to the side and can be killed, sold, or kept easily. (In the case of IBM, the services business took over the whole and services executives, like Sam Palmissano, became the senior executives.)

But don't be too dismissive of senior executives. They may know, either explicitly or intuitively, of high barriers to success for the new model. You mention healthcare -- have you properly taken into account the time and costs of compliance? Will privacy laws preclude your new business? How about liability? The senior execs may be wrong ultimately, but they are right to be skeptical until you've demonstrated these things.

And large companies have a brand to protect. Is it better for the shareholders if your nascent services business harms important (product business) client relationships while it figures itself out? Depending on the company's brand, the upside of your innovative business may simply not be worth the downside risk to the existing business. Senior executives are paid to worry about this.

So, ultimately, the solution is a separate organization, filled with services-skilled people, measured on a separate P&L (including all business costs), and maybe with a separate brand. Pitch that to senior executives. If they don't bite but you believe the business really can stand on its own, then go out and start it!

This is fairly common today in many organizations. Yes, they are dinosaurs, but like dinosaurs before the ice age, they still are the most successful owners of the organization, so deposing them is not an option. Within the senior group there will be one who is keen, has the foresight and connections to be the owner-sponsor and take the mid-manager under his wing. This means sharing the credit, but that should not be a concern. Managers often are upset that they may do the work, but a senior manager will get credit. Trust me, from experience, if the thing takes off as you expect there will be more than enough credit to spread to everyone and virtually the entire company will know via the grapevine who really made the thing work. Rather than seeing the senior group as enemies, you have to find a way to make them allies.

I would start by loosing the attitude. I find the "description" in this article to be very arrogant and condescending. This is not a good place to start.

Your second level guy is generating excitement in the wrong place. If you cannot properly communicate the benefits of your idea to the right people you are not going to get anywhere. Your CEO supports the idea because he wants to see what you can do with it.

You have not "presented enough justification and hypothesis to substantiate the need to enter into this business opportunity" - if you did we would not be having this conversation. You have also made some sour grapes "assumptions" as to why the white hairs don't want to stretch their imagination. You are talking about shifting a company from a from "a product-centric to a service-centric approach". This sounds like it costs money.

Justify why you what to spend the white hairs budget on your project - short and long term, show them they can get some return on this at some point - or else start up your own company and spend your own money on this. A bank won't even give you a loan until you present a viable business plan - the same type of well thought out plan you need to present to your current executives.

I have very nice dark hair by the way:-)

Have you tried to work with someone in Corp Communications to generate interest company-wide, particularly at the lower level? In addition, identify ambassadors (with influence) in each of the divisions affected, who can help galvanize support from the rank and file. Create a network of influencers within the organization and encourage ppl to become part of the solution to pushing your idea through. Identify some milestones, strategy to reach the milestones, and when accomplished, create events around your successes to keep rank and file engaged.

This kind of excitement and enthusiasm will ultimately create an atmosphere of change that the grey/Sr managers cannot ignore -- and it also singles them out as resistors to change, which could have an even bigger impact on their longevity.

In any situation where you feel the powers above you are acting irrationally, I find the best course of action is to simply chip away on each one of their objections/ concerns. When you show how you will deal with each issue and they don't have any more objections to come with, they simply have to say yes. They could of course still say no for no reason. If so, it's time to move on.

Paul's suggestion is a good one to reduce a lot of their concerns. Also, break it down in small steps and create visibility so that they can see the potential benefits. Don't ask to do the whole thing in one shot. Ask what they want to see for you to be able to move one more step forward

Are there any recent retirees who are trusted by the grey/white haired who would be prepared to work with the 2nd line manager on this project as a consultant?

This would allow the 2nd line manager to lead, but with guidance that will give the grey/white haired some comfort and ownership.