Management Bashing
Good article, but unfortunately it opens up one of the favorite topics on TR: Management Bashing. Coming from the other side of the fence and playing a little devil's advocate, managers have to guard against innovation that doesn't provide any value. It comes down to a decision based on the value, savings, speed, profits, or whatever the ROI is based on. If the ROI isn't there, then a manager would be a fool to move forward with it. Of course this means the person or persons who want the change will hit the company grapevine with all sorts of derogatory misinformation. It is worth noting that had the roles been reversed, these people would likely have made the same decision. (An exercise which I have personally tried before.)
Excessive changes can result in something I call "Change Thrashing". This happens when organizations are so hell bent on changing that their primary activity becomes changing. Their real output drops to essentially zero. It's just a matter of time before they change themselves out of existence.
I could write a book about this sort of stuff, but I need to get some real work done so I'll sum it up like this. Innovation is a form of change. We all know not all change is good. Managers are responsible for providing a sanity check to prevent over-exuberant workers from implementing innovative ways to destroy the business.
