The fallacy of added value (Goldsmith)
August 1st, 2008 | Published in Business, Psychology, Work, Quotes
Imagine you’re the CEO. I come to you with an idea that you think is very good. Rather than just pat me on the back and say, “Great idea!” your inclination (because you have to add value) is to say, “Good idea, but it’d be better if you tried it this way.”
The problem is, you may have improved the content of my idea by 5 percent, but you’ve reduced my commitment to executing it by 50 percent, because you’ve taken away my ownership of the idea. My idea is now your idea—and I walk about of your office less enthused about it than when I walked in.
That’s the fallacy of added value. Whatever we gain in the form of a better idea is lost many times over in our employees’ diminished commitment to the concept.
—Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (2007), pp. 48-49.