How do you sell an idea at work?
It's an interesting and important question for people hell bent on making a difference.
In "What's The Big Idea" by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, there is some great advice. The best of it comes from Mitzi Wertheim, a social anthropologist by training who works in -- of all places -- the U.S. Department of Defense as a "change consultant."
Mitzi appears well qualified to nudge leaders to adopt ideas. Her dad worked at Bell Labs and her mom is a pioneering child psychologist who rates a mention in Ripley's Believe It or Not for teaching babies how to roller-skate!
Her terrific suggestions:
Makes a helluva lot of sense to me.
Related Stories: | Topics:Innovation, ideas, Thomas Davenport, Laurence Prusak, Mitzi Wertheim, U.S. Department of Defense, Bell Laboratories Inc. |
Recent Comments | 1 Total
August 22, 2003 at 2:51pm by Philip Dhingra
Corporate change is somewhat of an oxymoron. There is too much resistance and too many people's approval required to get change done. I'd like to call it more like corporate "adaptation."
Here are the common "change" scenarios:
- A company's back is against the wall and it must adapt or die
- Somebody proposes something that has innovative "style", but is really just an unoriginal idea sexied-up.
- A new company rolls around and demonstrates a better route
- Something you're currently working on surprises people in your company, and then they start to route resources your way.
- You develop so much power and respect that resources are allocated your way to do whatever you want with them.