Entering the No Innovation Zone

During a conversation at work last week, a staff member stated, matter of factly, that we were in the 'no innovaton zone' on a project he was working on. He explained that he wanted to introduce no new ideas to a committee he believed could not handle anything more than what they always do. Adding anything new would work only to upset the stuttering, clunky operation that was barely capable of getting to the finish line.

It's hard to describe how that hit me. The last 20 - 25 years of my career have been built on breaking the status quo and refusing to cede any of my power to the arbitrary expectations or standards set by others. The great work that I am most proud of exists outside of most norms - from community-built projects to political campaigns to organized labor. I see breaking the status quo as a feature not a bug.

It was also a brief glimpse inside the thinking of a senior staff member in the organization. The 'no innovation zone' says more about the person holding the thought than the committee he was referring to. His self-censorship of new thinking and extremely low belief in the people he is working with are indictments on a culture stuck with no place to go.

Figuring out where the challenge is for me here is tough. It seems more a matter of people not wanting to put the effort in to break the inertia than either not knowing how or why. There's no desire to break new ground and experiment with ideas.