Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We want new ideas. We want innovation. Do we? How would we know?

We are tired of the same old stuff. We need new people in the room with new ideas. We need some innovation here!—said a frustrated person who doesn’t see a solution to the current problem

Innovation. New ideas. Frustration talking. There must be someone out there who has never worked here. They can walk in the room, look around, and proclaim, “I know what to do!”

Would anyone listen to them? They haven’t been here before. They don’t understand what goes on here. They don’t know how difficult this is. They don’t understand that we are smart and hard working and all that and if we can’t solve this, no one can!

At the same time, we believe there is someone with some insight and …

Yes, our problems are difficult. There are many details that an outsider doesn’t understand. There are people who can, in the blink of an eye, see the solution. If they can see the solution, why couldn’t we? It would be awfully embarrassing to realize that the solution was sitting there right in front of us all along. We could all be replaced by this new person with this new idea.

There is a brief time when a person enters a new job that they can accept the innovator and the innovation. After that brief time, the person becomes the problem. Solutions point to their inadequacy. Such is human nature.

We can do better. Let’s try.