"Anyone who gives an idea without taking it forward for implementation should be hanged".
- The Single Parenting Principle for Ideas (term coined by yours truly)
When one of my very good friends told me of this statement, and that she admires it, I told her that I beg to differ; I told her that, no, they should not be hanged.
Why should they not be hanged? Because I think the above philosophy conveys the following harmful messages to the people in our organizations, to us.
1) Thou Shalt Propose Only What Is Possible for You
By placing the responsibility for implementation on those who come up with ideas, the system implicitly asks employees to propose only those solutions which they themselves would be able to implement. What is the problem here?
Let me ask you; what is your potential? I mean, do you know your true potential? I am of the firm belief that whoever you are, your potential is infinite, a lot remains to be tapped, explored, realized. However, you would agree that many people underestimate their own potential (and hence of those around them too).
Organizational culture can often widen this gap between true and estimated self-potential. For instance, a multi-layered bureaucracy where individual autonomy is minimal can make employees extra-diffident. Further, many employees (as well as executive leadership) commit the fallacy of regarding organizational resources as fixed, and set goals based on currently available resources as the starting point. This can lead to goals that do not do justice to the organization's potential.
Couple this with our risk-averse nature and the low tolerance level most organizational cultures have for "failure".
In this situation, asking employees for what is possible for them to do translates inevitably into what employees think is certainly possible. In other words, this can lead to ideas that in most cases are too modest to be good enough.
The single parenting principle can thus scuttle ambition, imagination, freedom and creativity - doing significant harm to the quality and quantity of generated ideas. The organization thus can fail miserably in stretching the horizon of the possible, leave alone, inspiring the impossible.
2) Either We are Too Good or You Have Infinite Time and Energy
Besides demanding individual employee ability to implement proposed ideas, the Single Parenting Principle also expects employee willingness in bringing the idea to fruition.
In most cases, proposing an idea is but one piece of the long-drawn process of organizational improvement. Significant time and energy would often be required in developing, implementing and institutionalizing it.
Can we expect the same employee who proposed the idea to play the lead role in all steps of the process? Mostly, no; more so, if the idea does not squarely fall within the umbrella of responsibilities given to the ideator. Yet, this is what the Single Parenting Principle assumes.
Thereby, conveying the message that innovation and organizational improvement are optional, even a luxury!
3) Thou Shalt Work in Silos
We know that almost all organizations have a certain division of functional responsibilities. These boundaries are often closely guarded, thanks to a sense of attachment to one's work, which in turn flows from the personal pride in what one does. Not keen to rub others the wrong way, most people take care in respecting these work boundaries - even excessively. Left unchecked, this apparent deference to one's personal professional space can cultivate systematic organizational myopia, and can even lead to the permanent loss of even industry-redefining opportunities for the organization.
Arguably, the biggest insurance against such opportunity losses is an idea-friendly organizational culture. One where no one is afraid to be labelled an idea person or to propose an idea for the improvement of even a team or function which is normally "none of your business".
This is especially important, given that many ideas for organizational improvement are either applicable in multiple divisions, and/or spans multiple divisions/functions.
Imagine what the Single Parenting Principle does to an organization that lives by it. In one stroke, it kills most worthy ideas. The ones that do manage to take birth are likely to address at best some local issues which may be just symptoms of deeper systemic problems; not big-picture issues, let alone game-changers. If inter-departmental ideas do emerge, the transformation of the ideator as the implementer can well lead to ego clashes and dysfunctional conflicts. Ensuring thereby, an idea-shy organization.
4) Thou Shalt Do Great Work - All Alone!
The world has always been strange to the keen observer. On the one hand, today's world appears to be hyper-competitive; at the same time, it is true also that the age of competition is over! Yes, the ability to collaborate is perhaps the definitive "competitive advantage" in the 21st century, and beyond.
The Single Parenting Principle strikes at the root of the ethos underlying this collaboration economy, By incentivizing individual accomplishment rather than group performance, the principle can prod people along heroic pursuits of self-imagined individual greatness, blind to the beauty, meaning and possibilities of collective development and mutual meaning-making.
The Single Parenting Principle for Ideas fails to recognize that we need great teams, not lone geniuses, now more than ever. No, in fact, it entrenches the opposite mind-set and motivations.
5) We Are Not One
We saw how the Principle does not fit with the realities of collective human accomplishment, in terms of the demands it places on individual employee ability, energy, group work processes and the value creation process in the 21st century society.
A closely related, and perhaps the deepest and most significant, failure of this Principle lies in what it does to the very concept and idea of the organization itself. To the idea of work.
Let us take a brief step back, before coming to this.
I have a daughter. I love her very much. Is she my daughter? Yes. But, is she "my daughter"? My daughter alone? Of course, no. Not only is she (obviously) my wife's daughter too, she is a daughter of God, and of the world too - in the sense of being a gift, a calling to be a blessing, to it. God, one's spouse, our family, the world - all of them, as well as our children themselves, have a role in the development of our children, even if we be their parents.
In a similar sense, just because I proposed an idea, does that make the idea mine? Even if we choose to conveniently forget that we stand on the shoulders of giants, the idea belongs to the organization, the industry, the world, the times. It is my humble submission that unless we are able to adopt this spirit, innovation is likely to remain a solitary, highly painful and often fruitless pursuit.
Yes, idea and innovation success demands both letting go of the self, and loving "their" children as yours. By allowing only one person to parent an idea, the Single Parenting Principle kills not only innovation and organizational performance, but also the essence of the human spirit. And the danger is that it does it stealthily, subliminally, often without our knowledge and understanding.
Isn't it time we adopt a more single-minded approach? An innovation philosophy, where employees are:
- encouraged to imagine the impossible and propose ideas that they believe they will not be able to implement (the ability may be unrealized, it may lie elsewhere, or the organization may acquire the ability),
- freed to give suggestions without having to take personal responsibility for them (in the confidence that the management will take care of it),
- emboldened to respectfully question accepted wisdom with childlike freedom and confidence (in the security that it will not hurt interpersonal equations),
- motivated to build on each other's ideas and implement them together,
- inspired to respect diversity, yet think and act as one, routinizing innovation and time-proofing organizational development?
Isn't it time we shed - and put an end to - the Single Parenting Principle for Ideas? Realizing that ideas have, and need, multiple parents, just like all of us need multiple parents? (I am not referring to biological parents, and please be assured that I am not making any evaluative judgement on the merits of single parenting). Hope I am not being over-confident in hoping that you agree!
Incidentally, I just discovered that I forgot to mention another - equally critical - reason for ending the Single Parenting Principle. Let me reserve that for another post.
Thank you for your kind attention, to this idea! If you find this as an "idea worth spreading", or at least deliberating upon, please do share this post with your friends/colleagues. Many thanks!
We all need feedback; would hence be grateful for your invaluable feedback. It would help me in improving/correcting my thinking, as also this idea on the Single Parenting Principle. Thanks again.
And deeply grateful to my dear and respected friend Neha; she is the one who has been the trigger for this post. Can't thank her enough.
And deeply grateful to my dear and respected friend Neha; she is the one who has been the trigger for this post. Can't thank her enough.
May 7, 2017
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