If You’re the Boss, Start Killing More Good Ideas

Six months ago, Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science at Stanford University and author of a new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, had a blog entry “12 Things Good Bosses Believe. ”  You can find that entry at <http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/05/12_things_that_good_bosses_bel.html>.

Today’s Tuesday Reading is Sutton’s effort to delve into one of these issues:  “If You’re the Boss, Start Killing More Good Ideas <http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/if_youre_the_boss_start_killin.html>.  Sutton’s thesis here, identified from peer-reviewed studies plus his experience studying and consulting to managers, is very simple:  Among the ideas that surface there are not-so-good ideas, good ideas, and very good ideas.  It’s a no-brainer to kill the not-so-good ideas.  It’s hard, even very hard, to kill the ideas taht are only good.

Yet they have to be killed so that the resources, time, and attention can be made available to fully develop the very few, very good ideas.  How are you doing on killing ideas?

.  .  .  .    jim