Technology Innovation vs. Insubordination

You have been hard at work on your latest technology innovation. This innovation can take your organization to a higher level of profitability or streamlined operation. You've been successfully making your case for your innovation across departmental and hierarchical lines. But there are obstacles in your way:

- your boss doesn't believe your innovation can actually work
- there is no room in the budget to accommodate your innovation in the short term
- your innovation would open up new lines of business, but your organization's senior executives will not examine a relationship between a technology component and a profit potential of these lines of business

You truly and strongly believe that your innovation can take your organization higher, but the obstacles remain. You take all of the "believe in yourself" advice to heart in order to "hang in there", but the frustration continues to mount. The message of innovation can be tough to deliver to, and be accepted by an organization. On the surface, it can actually appear to be insubordination if your innovation is not part of the "master plan" in the minds of your organization's management.

Before your frustration bubbles over, you may want to consider these points:

- Understand your organization's short-term goals
For the next three or six months, your organization might not have the capacity to handle your innovation. There may be a critical window for your organization to focus on what it is doing right now, and what it plans to do in the short-term. You must exhibit an understanding and acknowledgment of your organization's situation and direction, otherwise a perception of aimless wandering regarding your ideas may result.

- Understand the current climate
You don't really feel the below-freezing temperatures when you are wearing seven sweaters - cut through the layers and get in touch. Who really holds the influence cards in your organization? Where exactly is your organization feeling the pressure that your innovation might relieve? Are there any factors outside the organization responsible for this pressure? And how much do you really know about them? Find out!

- Understand and believe in your organization's long-term goals
You are part of your organization because you want the organization to succeed in its goals, yes? If you ask yourself this question, and any part of the answer resonates "no", then you have an internal conflict of interest that no amount of innovation (or insubordination, for that matter) can overcome. You will need to reevaluate whether your goals for seeing your innovation put in play are in alignment with your organization's goals after all.

- Believe in yourself via persistence, not arrogance
Continue to make your case, but back it up with tangible benefits that can be sold across your organization. Exactly where and how will your innovation help your organization's people to complete your organization's goals? If you can state the costs and benefits of your innovation with equal and increasingly strong precision, you can avoid the far less convincing "I'm just right about this" and "Trust me" selling tactics.

When you can understand and accept the above, you know that you will need to take your mounting frustration to task, and focus on finding ways to work with or remove the obstacles in your way. You then can work towards a realized innovation and avoid an insubordinate situation that may not be necessary.

One exception to the above: emergency or crisis of organizational survival. There's nothing like a true survival emergency for an organization to consider ANY idea, no matter how far afield the idea lies. If a true crisis like this exists in your organization, and your organization's culture opens up its pathways of reception, you can go for the straight sell of your innovation. What may be perceived as insubordination at the outset can be forgiven, just as long as your organization weathers the crisis using your innovation, and of course, you are right about the results.