When new ideas meet resistance at work, what happens next often depends less on the idea itself and more on the support innovators receive from the people around them. A new study from the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School finds that colleagues play a defining role in helping innovators push through setbacks or, conversely, abandon their efforts altogether.
"Innovators really care deeply about their work," said Luke N. Hedden, an assistant professor in the Department of Management. "For most of them, it's an important part of who they are," added Hedden, lead author of a new Organization Science article, "Tight, Loose, or Denied Holding: How Interpersonal Holding Shapes Innovators' Responses to Innovation Obstacles."
"Innovators encounter setbacks all the time," he said. "It's really difficult work disrupting the status quo. Trying to improve how an organization operates can be a daunting process."
Hedden and co-authors Beth Schinoff, Ned Wellman and Rebecca Blanchard closely monitored the experiences of innovators working for a hospital system in the northeastern United States. When innovators felt stymied, leading to high emotions and disappointment, they turned to colleagues for "interpersonal holding," which provided solace and motivation.
Interpersonal holding is "a type of social support behavior that really focuses on helping people contain distressing emotions when things go wrong at work, and that helps them make sense of the situation," Hedden said.
This research found that interpersonal holding episodes fall into three broad categories:
- Tight holding: Support from emotionally close colleagues who offer empathy and help reduce stress.
- Loose holding: Support from individuals who are less emotionally close but who encourage perseverance and renewed effort.
- Denied holding: Responses from unsupportive individuals who heighten frustration and contribute to innovators abandoning their efforts.
"One of the things that we were surprised by is that holders can come from anywhere," Hedden said. "We didn't see conclusive patterns suggesting that a certain type of individual within an organization, like a supervisor versus a colleague, would be more likely to provide one type of holding versus another.
"One of the main takeaways is an appreciation that people who are on the front lines innovating often encounter tough sledding," Hedden said. "This is not an easy job, and I think it's important for organizations to understand that, not only do those people need support, but organizations need to understand what that support should look like in order to help those people succeed.
"I can see why the experience is so frustrating for some people."
