Brian Walch, a manager who defaulted to saying no, describes how constant idea requests burned him out and stifled innovation. He proposes aspirational experimentation: a structured way to surface employee ideas, evaluate them, and say yes to the promising ones without destroying your well-being.
Chapters
One of the things that happened when I was a manager is I got overwhelmed with all the responsibilities and requests coming at me. It was easy for me when somebody came with an idea to say, oh, no, we don't have time for that. I became known as somebody who said no. A lot more than yes. I want to help managers be able to say yes to things, but they have to do that in a way that doesn't throw threaten their work, life balance, and other emotional health issues. So aspirational experimentation is a way to encourage innovation and surface ideas that all the employees have in a way that the manager can then manage and regulate and provide opportunities to insert or bring that innovation to life in the organization.