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Innovation Antibodies: Thanks but no thanks for your ideas … now please go away

The innovation antibodies are alive and well in every organization that I’ve ever been involved with.  Some people just can’t help themselves.  They feel like they have the right and obligation to educate the person as to why their ideas won’t work. By allowing these people to operate unchecked, lea

Phil McKinney
Phil McKinney
— 1 min read
Innovation Antibodies: Thanks but no thanks for your ideas … now please go away

The innovation antibodies are alive and well in every organization that I've ever been involved with.  Some people just can't help themselves.  They feel like they have the right and obligation to educate the person as to why their ideas won't work.

By allowing these people to operate unchecked, leaders signal to the organization that new ideas will be rejected and thus innovation is not important.

So what are you to do? Avoid the anti-bodies at all cost if you can.  Go around them … even go silent and execute your idea as an underground project.  You can always ask for foregiveness later.

If you are the anti-body within your organization, how can you change?

  1. Repent from your past sins
  2. Read the 11 rules for getting along
  3. Follow them

What creative ways have you used to avoid the corporate antibodies?

p.s. If you haven't figured out by now, I'm a big fan of Tom Fishburne.  If you don't read his stuff, you should.

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Phil McKinney

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Phil McKinney is an innovator, podcaster, author, and speaker. He is the retired CTO of HP. Phil's book, Beyond The Obvious, shares his expertise and lessons learned on innovation and creativity.

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