Buenas Ideas

CRUCIBLE 136 A restaurant group CEO on winning back the job he lost

CASE STUDY 141 The pros and cons of doing business in political hot spots

SYNTHESIS 146 Hollywood’s message for big business

LIFE’S WORK 152 Annie Lennox on artistry and activism

Experience
Managing Your Professional Growth hbr.org

MANAGING YOURSELF

How to Save Good Ideas
Outlining lessons from his new book,John P. Kotter explores some simple ways to fight off attackers and ensure that your best initiatives succeed. Interviewed by Jeff Kehoe
HBR: Why do so many good ideas generated by well-intentioned, talented people fail? Kotter: We’ve been taught that once
you’ve got a good idea, and you’re convinced it’s a good idea, then it’s just a matter of presenting it in a clear and logical way, and areasonable group of people will see it. That takes care of that. The reality is that we’re presenting it to human beings, who have anxieties, contrary opinions, and a constant fear of what any interaction might do to their standing in the group. And then stack on top of that a basic skepticism about new ideas. In the work that led to our new book, Lorne Whitehead and I found that there is a set—more thantwo or three, but not 100—of generic, recognizable ways that people express those feelings, and the basic effect is that it comes out as an attack. Even if your idea’s great and the logic is clear in your head, these attacks are tricky, and so the whole project goes off track and the idea doesn’t get the support it needs. It dies off. This happens all the time.

How big a deal is this? Is it areal threat to new ideas in organizations?
Yes, but the issue goes far beyond large-scale change, far beyond executives. That’s where I started looking, and I’ve done three or four research projects over the years that have shown a common pattern of how large-scale change works in organizations. One of the pieces has to do with helping people to

communicate, bringing them around to supportyour vision, your strategy, your plan—and, in a smaller sense, just your idea. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that this is a big deal and that we’re not very good at it. As we dug deeper and deeper, what became obvious is that getting buy-in for good ideas is a basic human issue; it’s a life skill. It’s just as useful to my 19-year-old daughter presenting a solution for a group project at NYU asit is for a 50-yearold executive in a business setting. Dealing with attacks on new ideas is a human challenge that doesn’t seem to be sector specific or age specific. I find that fascinating.
October 2010 Harvard Business Review 129

ILLUSTRATION: EDEL RODRIGUEZ

EXPERIENCE

Why aren’t we better at pushing forward our good ideas?
Because all our systems and our attention are focused onthe front end: Find the idea, find the new strategy. I first encountered this issue many years ago with Bruce Henderson, when he created the Boston Consulting Group. Bruce was a very clever, very interesting guy, and he called me when I was a relatively young professor. We had a series of lunches, and he explained that he and BCG had the strategy formulation concept really far along, and he washappy with that. But he wasn’t happy with the implementation piece. They’d give clients the great report, and then a few years later they’d learn that the idea hadn’t been embraced or put into practice. He was smart enough to see that this had something to do with human dynamics, and that’s why he was calling me, because I’m the behavior guy.

Henderson was one of the first people raising thequestion, and it continues to be a huge issue. Why? Well, it’s one thing to be able to generate ideas by digging up data, analyzing it, and putting it together in some kind of logical way. But gaining the support you need is an entirely different story. Whether it’s a little deal with half a dozen players or a big decision at a company with hundreds or thousands of people, you’re in the murky land of...