2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor was a mechanical engineer who, according to Peter Drucker, “was the first man in recorded history who deemed work deserving of systematic observation and study.” Taylor...

For all of the fervor around innovation, far too many organizations are hostile places for new ideas (not to mention the people that harbor them). All too often, new ideas are cooked up in a hothouse environment—the executive inner sanctum, an invitation-only innovation offsite, a limited-access “war room”—and not shared widely until they’ve been sanctioned from on high. When they are offered up by some hardy soul in the trenches, they generally have just one place to go: up the chain of command. In other words, they get the hot lights of judgment before they get a chance to breathe.