If you’re in a leadership role, you should regularly ask yourself if you are making a decision that someone else in your organization could make. Get the decisions close to the customer, close to the problem. When William Wrigley, Jr. took over the Wrigley empire from his father (who took over from his father who took over from his father), he was soon asked to decide about the color of the carpet on the 12th floor. He recalls thinking, “I don’t want to make this decision. And I don’t want anyone who reports to me to make this decision.” (Wall Street Journal, March 11-12, 2006, “Father, Son and Gum”) Had Wrigley not had that insight, he might not have been successful in pulling out of the slump the company was in.

Not long after that, he created shock waves by letting folks know that he was unaware of one of the company’s initiatives – heresy under the old regime. Wrigley sent an email to his workers that said, “If we never make mistakes, then we are most likely not being very innovative and not taking enough risks.”

Wrigley seems to have understood that decisions need to be close to the problem and risks are a vital ingredient for innovation. While neither of these is a startling revelation, neither is easy to implement in a culture that likes to do things “the way they’ve always been done.”

Take a look around your organization. What are you doing the same old way? Where do you need to shake things up a bit?

Labels: delegation, innovation, leadership