Every business leader has heard this disturbing statement at least a few times when having a “hard conversation” with a direct report:

In today’s complex business world, business leaders are faced with many challenges and are provided with even more opportunities for success.  I recently conducted a business acumen session with a group of leaders who were discussing the challenge of creating alignment and leading across generations.  The conversation specifically included the challenges faced by leaders who are trying to balance the execution of strategy and how to effectively communicate and work with both different functions and levels of experience.

Business leaders around the world go to work every day and either try to ride the “Disruption Wave” by evolving their business strategies, or are hit by it totally unaware that it was coming.  The “Blockbuster” story has now become the overused example of a company that didn’t see the digital disruption wave coming and went from being a darlings of Wall Street to bankruptcy in a blink of the eye.

Many business professionals around the globe wake up every morning and write out their “To-Do” lists for the day.  They think they are organized and well prepared and attain a feeling of self-satisfaction when they are able to cross things off of their lists. Hopefully they are truly accomplishing things at work that will yield positive business results.

All organizations and leaders intuitively understand that coming up with that next breakthrough business innovation is always going to be a challenge technically and financially.  However, most business leaders may be faced with a quiet unseen blocker to business innovation that is harder to recognize and can derail the building of a culture of innovation… the “No Mentality.”

The “No Mentality” is defined as a culture where employees seem to always say “no” to new ideas and changes for a number of reasons, sometimes valid and sometimes because they are resistant to doing something different. Or because they are not engaged and simply don’t care to make any extra effort.  Some may say this is a natural form of resistance to change, but based on my experiences working with leaders and teams I believe that the blanket acknowledgement that this is what “change management” is all about isn’t helpful to the everyday leader trying to execute a strategy.