NFIB

Corporate Culture and Creative Decision Making, Part II
03/ 28/ 2002

Last week's Workshop discussed the decision-making process within different types of corporate cultures. Today's Workshop, by Jeffrey Moses, shows how to introduce innovative decisions or suggestions within conservative, risk-adverse organizations.

It's usually easy to determine if a company's culture is predominately risk-adverse. Indications would be:

It is almost always difficult to change the mind of the company's ownership or management Employees' individual suggestions are usually not considered Marketing and operational objectives remain unchanged for years at a time. The company puts its own well-being above the well-being of employees and even customers.

When working within such a corporate culture, an individual or group that is making decisions or suggestions needs to take into careful account previous decisions that have been made and accepted by management. When a company's risk-aversion is very high, any decisions or suggestions that are outside the previously accepted parameters of creativity will likely be dismissed.

There are ways to overcome resistance to new and innovative decisions and suggestions, however. The best way to accomplish this is by gathering hard data to support the choice. Almost always, the most relevant data involves sales facts comparing the company to its competition. Staying ahead of the competition is a primary necessity of any business, and acceptance of innovations is much more likely when details can be presented showing how the choices can help a company become or remain more competitive.

Another proven way to nudge a risk-adverse company into accepting an unprecedented decision is to form specific alliances with individual members of upper management who will champion new ideas. Almost every company, no matter how conservative, has at least one member of management who wants to see the company progress, and who is willing to speak up at meetings. While such alliances may involve office politics, they can be as simple as setting up meetings with specific managers to present innovative ideas to them.

A company should take a hard look at its corporate culture. These days, the pace of change in almost every industry is so fast that to remain overly risk-adverse is often self defeating. Certainly, business prudence never goes out of style, but it's almost always far better for a company to encourage and reward innovation among employees, and for the minds of upper management not to remain fixed on tried-and-true ways of doing things.

Employees need to evaluate their own roles within a company's culture. Creative employees may find their enthusiasm for work gradually shutting down when working in an environment that constantly frowns on innovation. In business, the individual affects the company, and the company affects the individual. For this reason employees need to be aware of how risk-adverse or open to change their company is, and either adapt to the existing parameters (trying to bend them slightly, perhaps) or look for a place within a new, more adventurous organization.

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