Get Out of the Way

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Conventional management practices can stifle innovation on your project. Emphasize teamwork and learning, instead.

Some widely practiced management techniques can actually hamper company efforts to innovate and encourage creativity. Practices such as emphasizing individual accountability and budgets, encouraging internal competition and practicing goal setting may be counterproductive, according to organizational behavior expert Jeffrey Pfeffer.

It's not that managers are intentionally trying to stifle innovation, says Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. In "Leading for Innovation and Organizing for Results" (Jossey-Bass, $27.95), Pfeffer says, "It requires courage to buck so much conventional management wisdom and practices. Everyone wants to earn exceptional returns but to do it by doing what everyone else does."

The problem with individual performance appraisals is that they can encourage workers to look out for themselves and waste valuable time and energy trying to find someone else to hold responsible, Pfeffer says. "If you want people to learn and innovate, build a system that encourages teamwork, learning and trying new things. Get people focused on those goals, not on avoiding blame and assigning responsibility. That's why companies that excel at innovation and learning have management …

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