In the last issue of his newsletter, Chris Brogan noted:

Companies and departments within companies work with the mindset that they should continue existing… With this in mind, realize that the changes you want to make will always die in committee. Realize that the shifts and the adaptations that need to happen for your business to compete will rarely come from within the organization. Understand that promoting from within, while noble, is going to kill your company because you’re pushing innovation to the side.

Have you ever created a really cool program only to have it die on the vine as 20 “key-stakeholders” (man, I hate that term!) analyzed and ripped it apart? Or worse yet, they approve it, but ask you make 117 changes before it goes live. And the program with all the required changes is nothing like the program you actually created.

I can’t say I agree with Chris that changes from inside always fail. But I do think that creating something mind-blowingly innovative is very challenging, particularly if you work in HR, where we thrive on the status quo.

What’s a renegade HR pro to do? You could always do it the Cali and Jody way: Launch a small, covert pilot within the company, but swear everyone to secrecy. Then, when the program works and you have the data to prove it, seek approval to role it out to the whole organization.

It could totally blow up in your face, but it’s crazy enough that it just might work!