9 excuses why ideas wont happen in business

9 excuses why ideas wont happen in business

Image courtesy of “Ambro”FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

 

 

Why ideas wont happen?

I have a lot of ideas. Most of them do not come true for various reasons.

Making ideas to happen is not easy. You need to fight with yourself, but also with others. It is really a struggle.

I have failed so many times with my ideas. You are full of excitement, present your idea and you will hear “There is no business value”. Crap.

This is a list of excuses that I have heard many times. I have seen many good ideas (my ideas and others) to disappear due to these excuses. This post is first in my idea series. The second post will cover ways to push your ideas to your managers.

1. We need to study first

Study is really good way to play time. You need to find people to make study, you need to prepare.

Managers who have difficulties to make decisions need a study. They can take the material to other managers and make the decision based on the study. If idea fails, they can blame the study – which is often bought from external consultant. They cannot be blamed or accused for bad decision. After all, it was external company that did the research for them.

I don’t believe in studies. I think it is better to do trial and error. Do something small and try it. See what happens, does it work at all. If you succeed, try something more and start building your idea. None of the ideas are perfect in the beginning. You need to build them.

2. There is no business value

Business value is the main killer for new ideas. I have heard it so many times. It is used without justification. The person that uses the sentence, does not need to offer any proof. When it is said, the responsibility is on you, who is presenting the idea.

It is not easy to give business value for improvement, that you know is for good, but has no easily calculated value. ..and it is not easy to deny the importance of business value.

3. Is there really need for that. Everything is fine now.

This attitude has converted successful companies to not so successful. You should never accept that everything is fine. You should always try to find ways to improve. Even if situation is fine, it does not mean it could not be better.

When company goes to operative mode and believes everything is fine, it has started to faint. There are other companies that are doing constant improvements. World is changing. Your customers are changing. Smaller companies have hunger to beat you.

We all know what happened to Nokia or Kodak.

4. Who has requested that?

Most ideas do not have client. If it is your new idea and you don’t have credibility in the company, you will be asked this question for sure. You will be hit with the question and your answer will be “amm.. mm..”. .. and your boss will continue, “well, if nobody has asked for it, there is no need to do it.”

5. It is not your or our responsibility

Organisations kill the new ideas. Responsibility areas and boxes in organisation charts. Specially when good ideas are coming from people who work with completely other responsibility areas.

It is not acceptable to someone from outside to present ideas. When this question is asked, your boss or your company has lost its meaning. Responsibility areas have become more important than new ideas and producing something new. Energy goes to responsibility not to the results.

7. We have already tried. It has failed before.

It turns out that your idea is not new or it is similar than previously tried idea. You are returned to starting point. If someone has failed, there can be several different reasons why failure has happened. It does not really matter, even if you have better team or better plan. If it has once failed, it will work forever as excuse.

8. We don’t have enough time (since we are operating)

Companies are so focused on operating that they forget importance of new things. If you want to stay with the development, you need to innovate and create new things. There is always time for good ideas. It is matter of priority.

9. We have more important things to do

Again, the order of importance is in the hands of your superiors. It is difficult to argue without stepping on their toes.

I have experienced all these excuses. The force is not with the innovators or creative people – but keep on pushing. Your ideas will go through.

How about you? Have your ideas ever been blocked?

 

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