Introduction
If an idea doesn’t get off the ground, does that automatically mean it was a bad idea?
Well, no. That’s why there are a million and one videos out there on things like “how to write a knock-out business case”, for example. Sometimes, good ideas don’t get off the ground because you can’t articulate the value of the idea in the way someone needs to hear it. You might know — gut feel/intuition — that it’s a good idea, but if the person who has to approve the idea can’t follow your reasoning, that doesn’t automatically make it a bad idea. (I’ll stick to business related ideas for this, but the lesson is applicable in other scenarios.)
You can also write a good business case and still have your idea not move forward. Does that, then, mean that the idea wasn’t a good one? Well, again, no.
Even if there’s a good business case, it’s a common misconception in technology (not to mention a plethora of other arenas) that if an idea doesn’t make it off the drawing board, or doesn’t get approved, it just mustn’t have been a good one.
This often leads people to be reluctant to put forward their ideas on how things might be improved, or what should be implemented, for fear that the ideas may not be perceived as being good.
But here’s the thing I’ve observed over the years: many ideas fail to develop (approval, funding, momentum) not because they’re bad, and not even because they lack a decent business case, but because of angular friction.
What is Angular Friction?
So, what do I mean by angular friction?
Start by conceptualising an idea. Ideas have cores, but they also have protuberances and edges, too. These are the offshoots of the idea, and where the idea bumps up against other ideas, or perhaps more broadly, other things. They might be ideas, but they could also be processes, people or goals.
In short: ideas don’t exist in a vacuum.
Good ideas don’t fail to get up because they’re not good. They fail to get up because of drag or resistance to the things around the edge. Hence, angular friction.
There are a few common types of angular friction — and learning how to identify them is a great first step to dealing with them. They are:
- Competes with other processes.
- Competes with other priorities (or agendas).
- Competes with other ideas.
So what are they all about?
Your idea competes with other processes
This is, quite simply, the “we don’t do it that way” problem. It’s probably the easiest source of angular friction to identify, because people are the most up-front about it.
You’ll either hear the objection “it’s never been done that way before”, or “we’ve never done it that way” — or any similar variation.
In this case, the angular friction is either apathy, comfort, or some other variation of change-aversion. People may even see that your idea is a good one, but there would be a sense of discomfort or disruption if change were attempted.
So, here you have to build up arguments about why it will be easier, or better to change. That means having counter-arguments to any “cost of change” perspective; i.e., that maybe things will get worse, or more complicated for a short while, during a transition, until the change is complete, and the benefits kick in. Yes, this is the sort of information that you’d document in a business case, but to do so you’ll need to become aware of the background to the change-aversion.
To achieve that, it means you have to fall back to a standard technique for successful business cases: only putting the formal business case through once you’ve sanded off the edges and reduced angular friction. That means stepping through as many people involved in the decision making process and getting them on-board, not just logically, but also emotionally.
Your idea competes with other priorities (or agendas)
Business is politics. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise probably also has a bridge to sell you. That probably makes me sound cynical, but just saying business is politics doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad politics. (Sure, if it’s donating to a gun lobby, it’s bad politics, but that’s not what I’m referring to.)
Your business develops strategies and goals to help maintain focus. “For the next three quarters we’re going to increase our market penetration of left-handed widgets by 12%”. This sets priorities, and establishes agendas.
If your idea doesn’t strategically align with business priorities and agendas, its angular friction is high. I.e., when your idea competes with other priorities/agendas, it can mean that the idea is fine, even if the timing isn’t. If that’s the case, one of your goals should be to work out what is the right timing for your idea? If the business has a particular period it plans for new initiatives, that’s likely the best time to present your idea.
Timing is only one potential source of angular friction in this scenario, though — and of course, some ideas are time sensitive. Those other priorities and agendas will have budget/investment associated with them, and budgets aren’t infinite. So your idea in this situation is competing against the result of previous decisions.
It’s important to think of it this way, because when you do make the case for your idea, the very people you’re making your case to may be champions of one of those competing priorities — i.e., they may have helped set an agenda that you’re asking them to adjust. Here, you need to look for potential synergies between your idea and existing priorities and agendas. Or, if there’s no synergies to be found, at least ways to mitigate perceived risk.
So, you’ll need to be able to answer one (or preferably both) of the following two questions:
- How can this idea help us achieve our existing priorities/agendas?
- How can this idea be further explored without risking our existing priorities/agendas?
One last point here: it’s also worth keeping in mind that when priorities or agendas become established, your idea in these situations will also start to come up against change-aversion.
Your idea competes with another idea
This is arguably a special case of the previously discussed scenario. If you’re coming up with an idea to solve a problem, there’s a good chance that other people have been mulling over the problem as well. Sometimes the problems aren’t perceived as exactly the same.
When you’re trying to convince people of the merits of your idea and there’s an alternate idea, you’re competing in the same ‘swim lane’, so to speak.
It’s sometimes difficult to see when you’re competing with another idea. Yes, at times, the person or people who have that idea will be up-front and in fact openly touting their idea as a preferred solution. In actual fact, that’s the better scenario for you — it means the cards are on the table.
If people aren’t revealing competing ideas, it doesn’t mean they’re not strongly held ones. That’s where the challenge of identifying competing ideas comes in. Here you want to inquire on alternate solutions, or variations, from objectors — or even in group meetings when the objectors aren’t obviously known. If you can encourage people to start discussing how they might envisage alternate solutions, you can usually identify who has an alternate idea.
OK, so once you’ve got them identified, what do you do?
No, once you’ve identified the holders of the competing ideas, your goal isn’t to crush them. These people instead are an invaluable resource to you — just as you might be to them. Now there’s a problem with two or more potential solutions that people have been thinking of. Is there a way both ideas can work together, can be merged, in such a way that it smooths out more edges and reduces angular friction?
Wrapping up
In all of this, it’s worth keeping in mind as you try to determine where angular friction is coming from: your idea can still be good — great, even — even in situations where for whatever reason it isn’t the best idea. So just as you’re working through the process of identifying and countering angular friction, so too should you be prepared to continuously re-evaluate your idea against what people are countering with. In fact, that’s the true approach for dealing with angular friction — being able to articulate why all those edge scenarios that people throw at you either don’t matter, can be avoided, or actually present a hidden benefit.