This article delves into the reasons why overly attentive innovative projects by bosses are prone to failure, revealing the multiple factors behind them, such as human nature, management logic and organizational culture, and providing strategic suggestions for professionals and managers to cope and break the situation.
Have you ever experienced a scenario where your boss attaches great importance to an innovative project, sets the direction and frequently inquires about the progress, but the team members secretly complain behind your back that “the boss is too strong” and “no one dares to mention the true idea”? In the end, the innovative project ended in failure, the boss beat his chest and the team was collectively silent.
This is one of the most heart-rugged paradoxes in the workplace: the more innovative projects the boss pays attention to, the easier it is to overturn.
Why? Is it because the boss “doesn’t understand the product”? Or is the team “poor execution”? In fact, the answer is far more complex than it seems. Behind this lies a multiple game of human nature, management logic and organizational culture.
01 The more the boss is concerned, why does he “overturn”?
Arrogance: use “experience” to kill possibilities
The bosses have been fighting in the business sea for many years, and their brilliant records in the past are as dazzling as medals. However, these glories sometimes become invisible shackles that lead them into the arrogant trap of “empiricism”.
They confidently stand tall and see far, believing that the novel ideas of employees are just small fights. always find his subordinates, constantly criticize and reprimand. I feel that no one understands users and innovation better than me.
The boss of a traditional home appliance giant directly denied it after hearing the young product manager put forward the idea of “building a home appliance Internet of Things ecology” at the smart home appliance transformation seminar: “Don’t mess with these empty heads, I relied on cost performance to spread products all over the country, and now I am doing it right.” ”
The problem is: when the boss filters new ideas with “empiricism”, the team’s spark of innovation is suppressed by an invisible “tightening curse”.
Lack of trust: extinguish creativity with “control”
The essence of innovation is trial and error, but many bosses see teams as “machines that execute with precision.”
When an Internet company developed a social app, because the initial user growth did not meet expectations, the boss publicly reprimanded the team: “What are you doing?” I spent so much money to support you, so show me this!” Under high pressure, employees trembled and did not dare to try new functions, and finally the project was stillborn.
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The price of trust: When the boss replaces “process inclusion” with “result-oriented”, the team falls into a stalemate of “not daring to make mistakes”. Innovation requires room for error, that is, to continue trial and error in the innovation process, agile and refined, and the boss’s “distrust” directly cuts off the possibility of trial and error.
Blame and substitution: Destroy team cohesion with “dumping the pot”
When an innovation project is frustrated, the boss’s first reaction is often to “replace” rather than solve the problem, which makes people panic, and they want to protect themselves, where is there time and energy to do things?
When a technology company was developing new software, it was unable to overcome technical problems for a long time, and the boss changed three people in charge one after another. The team members are panicked, all their energy is focused on “expressing themselves”, and they always spend a lot of time and energy on the report to find “unreal” data highlights to reflect the work performance, but no one cares about the project problems and no one is willing to overcome them, and finally the project is reduced to a plate of loose sand.
Chain reaction: Frequent personnel changes not only consume team morale, but also turn “responsibility” into “performance”. The boss’s “pot throwing culture” eventually backfired on the foundation of the project’s survival.
Information cocoon: use “filters” to cover up the truth
The boss habitually rejected “bad news”, and no one dared to tell the truth under high pressure, causing the team to fall into “false prosperity”.
When an e-commerce company’s live streaming project was launched, the boss pushed forward against public opinion, and the team members knew that the supply chain could not support the explosive order, but chose to remain silent for fear of being denied. In the end, due to insufficient goods and chaotic after-sales, word of mouth collapsed.
The toxicity of information: When the boss’s “authority” becomes an obstacle for the team to express their true opinions, the project is like wearing the mask of “the emperor’s new clothes”, until it is completely defeated, and finally knows that the truth is the boss, which is not revealed.
02 Ordinary people’s breakthrough: cultivate into a master in “adversity”
Once the boss gets too involved in the innovation project, we often get into dire straits. The pressure exerted by the boss was like a thousand pounds, almost suffocating, and the direction of the project became confusing due to the frequent intervention of the boss, making it impossible to judge whether the current path was correct. This chaotic situation makes our psychological defenses on the verge of collapse, and our hearts are filled with anxiety and confusion.
In the face of this dilemma, we should actively adjust our mentality and see it as an opportunity for growth. Adhering to the mentality of “honing in things”, in the process of communicating with the boss and promoting the project, every time you solve a problem or break through a predicament, it is an opportunity to accumulate experience and improve your ability.
At the same time, the awareness of self-protection is equally important. We must remain sober and objectively evaluate the project situation. If the project is deadlocked due to the unreasonable intervention of the boss, continuing to insist on it will only bring unnecessary losses, and it is necessary to give up decisively. You can’t blindly persist and let yourself fall victim to project failure. After all, the road to the workplace is long, and only by preserving strength can we usher in better development.
Learn to manage upwards: express value in the “boss’s language”
In projects where the boss intervenes excessively, learning to “manage upwards” is a necessary core ability for professionals.
First of all, it is necessary to master the expectation management, take the initiative to align the goals with the boss, clarify the phased results, and avoid the trust crisis caused by the gap in expectations.
Secondly, convey key information through structured reporting: use data instead of subjective judgment and focus on the business logic that the boss is concerned about, such as “the user conversion rate of the current solution has increased by 15%, but the development cost has increased by 30%”.
At the same time, provide alternatives rather than direct opposition, such as “we can prioritize core functions and then iteratively optimize edge requirements” to reduce decision-making resistance.
Finally, tie your personal advice to your boss’s goals, such as “Your goal is to seize the market, and my plan can shorten the launch cycle by 30 days.” Through these strategies, you can not only demonstrate professionalism, but also skillfully guide the direction of decision-making to gain space for yourself and your project in a high-pressure environment.
Core Tips:
- Replace emotions with data: Transform subjective judgments into quantifiable business logic.
- Provide choice rather than confrontation: Give the boss multiple options to reduce decision-making resistance.
- Binding interests: Emphasize the win-win logic of “your goal + my plan”.
Enhance industry know-how: win respect with “professional barriers”
In boss-led projects, if ordinary employees lack core competitiveness, they are easy to become executors. Take a design company bidding for a large-scale commercial space project as an example: the designer over-speculated on the boss’s preferences and adjusted the creative plan that could have been broken through into a conservative template.
The key to breaking the game is to reconstruct the right to speak with professional barriers – through deep cultivation of industry know-how, establish a systematic cognitive framework (such as commercial space flow design rules, user behavior data analysis models), and transform abstract ideas into quantifiable business value.
For example, embedding professional tools such as “pedestrian flow heat map prediction” and “floor efficiency improvement model” into the plan can not only avoid the doubts of “imagination”, but also use data to support the logic of innovation. When professional depth becomes the fulcrum of trust, even in the face of a strong boss, the marginal role can be transformed into an irreplaceable think tank role through the combination of “technical rationality + business insight”.
The key to breaking the game:
- Deeply cultivate subdivided fields: establish irreplaceable professional capabilities (such as user insight and technology implementation) in a certain link.
- Output industry insights: Regularly use “industry reports” and “trend analysis” to show your understanding of the market.
- Create personal IP: Strengthen your professional image through internal sharing and external speeches.
Apply iterative thinking: Use “small steps and fast running” to deal with uncertainty
The essence of innovation is “dynamic trial and error”, but managers’ “outcome anxiety” often pushes the team to the “perfectionist cliff”. An intelligent hardware start-up team spent 18 months building up redundant functions due to the execution of the “must succeed once” instruction, and finally lost the opportunity due to excessive technology and changes in market winds.
After the review, the team switched to the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) strategy: focus on core user pain points, retain only basic interactive modules, and complete development and launch within 3 months. By tracking user behavior data in real time, it was found that 80% of the activity was concentrated in core functions, so resources were focused on optimizing key experiences.
As a result, the product won a 25% market share in the subdivision track with “precise demand penetration”, which verified the scientific nature of “small steps and fast running” – innovation competitiveness does not lie in the “big and complete” preset perfection, but in the “accurate and fast” agile verification. This case reveals that only by tolerating phased imperfection and replacing static perfectionism with the iterative logic of “rapid failure-fast learning” can we truly control market uncertainty.
Recommendations for action:
- Dismantle the goal into a stage result: replace the “ultimate goal” with “milestone”.
- Establish a closed loop of feedback: review progress every week and adjust the direction in a timely manner.
- Accept “imperfection”: trade “quick failure” for “fast learning”.
03 Manager’s Breakthrough: From “Controller” to “Enabler”
Cultivating in innovative projects is an anti-human thing. Bosses should have the courage to break the mindset of the past and decisively abandon the successful experience of the past. Past experience often becomes an obstacle in the wave of innovation, and only by bowing down, honing oneself in things, and cultivating strong openness and critical thinking can we continue to polish ourselves in the practice of innovation and ultimately lead to success.
Zhang Yiming once said: By reducing the management method of management, let good people pursue their own goals and achieve good results. Instead of participating as a traditional “controller”, the boss should actively participate in it, become an “enabler”, and lead the team to open up new horizons.
Knowing that it is easy, doing it is difficult, and the unity of knowledge and action can only be achieved by honing things.
Allowing Failure: Giving Innovation the “Right to Trial and Error”
A technology company has set up an “innovation venture fund” to reserve a certain room for trial and error for innovative projects. Even if 7 – 9 of the 10 innovation projects fail, the company can achieve success by producing 1 – 3 high-impact leading products. This shows that the company understands innovation and that allowing failure is the only way to success.
Management Implications:
- Build a fault-tolerant system: Incorporate the “cost of failure” into budget planning to provide a backdrop for innovation.
- Motivate exploration behavior: Provide additional resource support to teams that propose new solutions to encourage bold exploration.
- Tap the value of failure: Regularly hold “failure review meetings” to explore lessons learned from failures and help subsequent innovation.
Entering the game: from “authority” to “navigator”
Managers should not be condescendingly criticizing and blaming, but need to step in and lead the team through high-performance coaching methods. Just like when JD.com joined the takeaway war, Liu Qiangdong personally experienced takeaway delivery work and went deep into the front line to gain insight into distribution problems, so as to make an effective layout and greatly improve delivery efficiency and service quality.
Management Implications:
- Participation, not leadership: When organizing brainstorming, leaders should switch roles, like Liu Qiangdong, only listen and not speak, and give employees space to discuss freely, so as to stimulate diverse and innovative thinking.
- Listen, not judge: In the innovation management process, leaders need to embrace seemingly “deviant” ideas, analyze the logic behind them, and don’t deny them rashly, because some seemingly absurd ideas are likely to become key breakthroughs in change.
- Support, not intervention: Leaders should fully provide resource support for the team, covering funds, manpower, technical equipment, etc., avoid proxy decision-making, and let the team accumulate experience and thrive in the practice of independent decision-making.
Rebuild trust: Stimulate the potential of the team with “respect”
According to Maslow’s theory of needs, the need to respect (the fourth layer) is the key lever for the team’s effectiveness leap. When members feel value recognition (such as participation in decision-making and creative signature system) rather than instrumental implementation, their subjective initiative will produce a fission effect.
Taking a technology company as an example, managers let grassroots employees directly propose to the board of directors through the “program roadshow system” and set up an “innovation medal” to commend contributors, resulting in a 47% year-on-year increase in the number of team patent applications.
This confirms the true meaning of management: trust is not laissez-faire, but through system design to transform respect for needs into productivity – when employees are promoted from “assessed” to “value co-builders”, the release of potential will far exceed the boundaries of mechanical incentives.
Management Implications:
- Transparent decision-making: Open the logic of resource allocation, so that all departments can understand the flow of resources, meet their psychological expectations of respect, and reduce suspicion.
- Empowerment rather than control: Carry out training, reasonable authorization, enhance team autonomy, let members feel their own value is recognized, and respect needs are met.
- Recognition instead of blame: Replace “result criticism” with “process praise” to recognize the efforts of members and stimulate team vitality from the level of respect.
04 Every failure is a small step towards the team’s success
Project failure is not terrible, but what is terrible is that it collapses in failure. You know, every failure is a valuable experience of growth. As the golden sentence says: “Those who can’t kill you will eventually make you stronger.” In the project in which the boss participates, although we face great pressure, it is also an opportunity to improve ourselves.
For ordinary people, this is an excellent opportunity to accumulate industry know-how and improve their upward management ability; For managers, it is a compulsory course to break the “illusion of authority” and return to the “essence of empowerment”.
The ultimate answer may lie in the fact that when the boss learns to replace “control” with “trust”, “blame” with “respect”, and when the team dares to “make mistakes” and is good at “iteration”, those innovative projects that once “overturned” will eventually become a beacon that illuminates the way forward.
As the old nautical proverb goes, “The bigger the wind and waves, the more it proves the strength of the ship.” In the wave of product innovation, only by letting go of the obsession of “controlling everything” can we truly sail to the other side of success.
What cases have you experienced in the workplace where “the more the boss pays attention to the project, the more the project fails”? Welcome to leave a message to share, maybe your experience can become a beacon for others.
