Discover how a struggling manager transformed apathy into innovation by removing invisible barriers. A leadership story about making good choices the easy ones.
https://differencemakers.substack.com/p/seven-steps-to-one-click
Have you ever watched your best ideas drift into silence, while frustration seeps in like a thick fog? In the fast-paced world of Pulse Technologies, Nathan Reid struggles to engage his team in a critical innovation initiative, facing overwhelming resistance. How can he transform apathy into enthusiasm and create a culture of collaboration? Perhaps you too have felt the sting of unrecognised potential and wondered how to bring your vision to life. Join Nathan as he uncovers the hidden power of choice architecture, learning to reshape an environment where innovation can flourish and each voice matters.
I stared at the dashboard, clicking the refresh button for the tenth time that morning. The counter still showed just three submissions! Three out of two hundred employees!! Two weeks in, and this was all I had to show for my innovation initiative.
"Come on," I muttered, scrolling through the seven-step application process I'd designed. The form was comprehensive, logical, covering everything from initial concept to resource requirements and implementation timelines. It was thorough. It was professional. It was sitting completely unused.
Six weeks earlier, Olivia had called me into her office, her expression serious but excited. "Nathan, I'm giving you something important," she'd said, leaning forward across her immaculate desk. "We need fresh thinking that cuts across departments. You're perfect for this."
Perfect. The word now mocked me as I closed my laptop, rubbing my tired eyes. In three days, I'd be sitting across from her again, trying to explain these dismal results. I'd been so certain that good ideas would naturally fight their way through my thorough process, that quality would rise to the top if the structure was solid enough.
I slumped back in my chair as another polite rejection pinged into my inbox.
"Thanks Nathan, but I'm swamped this week. Perhaps next month?" wrote Rajiv from Product Development.
"Process seems a bit involved. Will try to look at it when things calm down," came from Emma in Marketing.
"Sorry mate, got three deadlines this week," said Dan's message.
With each response, my stomach tightened. I'd spent the morning crafting detailed explanations, complete with highlighted sections of the form and bullet-pointed instructions. I'd even created an FAQ document that addressed every possible concern.
Nothing helped. The counter remained stubbornly at five submissions.
"Don't they understand how important this is?" I muttered, drafting yet another email. This time, I emphasized Olivia's personal interest and added "CEO-ENDORSED INITIATIVE" to the subject line. It felt desperate, but I was desperate.
By Wednesday afternoon, watching the submission counter inch up to just seven entries, I found myself wondering if the team simply didn't care about innovation. After all, I'd given them every possible resource and explanation. The process was clear. The importance was obvious.
Now I had less than 48 hours to figure out how to explain these numbers to Olivia.
I escaped to my car during lunch, desperate for some space to think. The ignition stayed off as I slumped in my seat, pulling out my phone to distract myself. Without much thought, I tapped on my podcast app, selecting the latest episode of "Difference Makers" that I'd been saving.
"In this episode, we're discussing the Hidden Power of Choice Architecture." The host's confident voice filled the car. "Choice architecture isn't about forcing the 'right' choice, but making beneficial choices the easiest ones to make. Unnecessary friction naturally repels people, not from laziness, but because humans conserve mental energy."
I sat up straighter, something in those words striking a chord.
"Leaders often design systems logical to them that create invisible barriers for others," the host continued. "Every form field, every approval is a point where you might lose someone."
My hand froze midway to the volume control. Oh good grief.
The seven-step process. The multiple approvals. The mandatory presentations.
I wasn't facilitating innovation, I was smothering it under layers of friction.
My phone buzzed with a calendar alert: "Meeting with Olivia - Innovation Update - 30 minutes."
My stomach dropped as everything suddenly became horribly clear.
I couldn't sleep that night. My meeting with Olivia had been mercifully rescheduled for the next day, giving me one last chance to understand what had gone so catastrophically wrong with my innovation initiative.
At midnight, I sat hunched over my laptop at the kitchen table, the blue light harsh against the darkness. "Choice architecture examples" I typed, then "reducing friction in processes" and "barriers to participation."
Article after article confirmed what the podcast had triggered. I scribbled frantically in my Moleskine:
* Reduce steps to absolute minimum necessary
* Make participation the default option, not an opt-in
* Create visible early wins that people can see
* Show progress publicly to build momentum
* Lower barriers to entry dramatically
The principles felt simultaneously revolutionary and embarrassingly obvious. I'd taken a behavioural economics module at university years ago—nudge theory, the path of least resistance—all concepts I'd forgotten when designing this process.
A verse surfaced from somewhere deep in my memory: "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment." Romans 12:3.
At 2 AM, it hit me fully: I hadn't created an innovation initiative. I'd built an innovation obstacle course, designed for someone exactly like myself.
Morning light streamed through my office window as I hunched over my laptop, seeing my innovation portal through new eyes. What had felt logical yesterday now resembled a bureaucratic nightmare. Seven pages of required fields. Three committee approvals. Detailed implementation plans needed before an idea could even be considered.
I clicked through each screen, my stomach sinking further with every mandatory field marked with a red asterisk. My throat tightened at the realisation of what I'd done.
"Ensure quality." That's what I'd told myself. But what message was I actually sending? "Your ideas probably aren't good enough to warrant this effort."
I ran my hand through my hair, the truth staring me in the face. I'd created a system that made perfect sense to me—detail-oriented, process-driven Nathan—without considering how utterly overwhelming it would feel to anyone else.
This wasn't selecting for good ideas. It was selecting for stubbornness. Only those persistent enough to battle through my fortress of forms would make it through, regardless of their idea's merit.
I'd designed the exact opposite of what I'd intended. Perfect, methodical, and completely wrong.
I cleared my calendar for the entire day. Meetings were cancelled or delegated. I needed total focus. This wasn't just about tweaking my approach—this required radical overhaul.
I grabbed a yellow sticky note and scrawled my new mantra: "Make the right choice the easy choice." Slapping it on my monitor, I dove in.
The old portal was nuked by 10 AM. In its place emerged something barely recognisable: a digital suggestion box accessible from any company device. The elaborate seven-step form? Gone. Replaced with a single question: "What's your idea to improve Pulse Technologies?" Anonymous submissions now allowed. A department leaderboard to spark friendly competition.
Most radically, I flipped the entire participation model. Everyone was now automatically enrolled to submit at least one idea per quarter. They'd have to actively opt out if they didn't want to participate.
As midnight approached, I finally hit "deploy" on the new system. It would go live first thing tomorrow.
Slumping back in my chair, doubt crept in like a cold draft. Had I overcorrected? Would Olivia see this dramatic shift as an admission of incompetence rather than adaptability? Was it too late to salvage not just the initiative, but possibly my role at the company?
I hit send on the company-wide email and watched it disappear into the digital ether, my heart hammering against my ribs. The bright red "Share Your Idea" button stared back at me from my own inbox, both accusation and opportunity.
What had I done? Completely demolished my original system without Olivia's approval. Publicly admitted failure to the entire company. Promised results I couldn't guarantee.
My tablet felt slippery in my sweaty palms as I walked the long corridor to Olivia's office. Each step brought a fresh wave of doubt. She'd entrusted me with this initiative because she thought I was methodical, thorough. Now I was about to tell her I'd binged on behavioural economics research at midnight and rebuilt everything from scratch.
The notification sound on my tablet pinged. Then again. And again. My screen lit up with alerts. Idea submissions already trickling in. Three. Five. Eight. By the time I reached Olivia's door, the counter showed seventeen new ideas.
I took a deep breath, squaring my shoulders. This wasn't just about saving the initiative anymore. It was about the leader I wanted to become—someone who could admit mistakes, adapt quickly, and create environments where others could succeed.
I knocked on her door.
"You completely redesigned the system overnight?" Olivia asked, eyebrows raised.
"Yes," I admitted, swallowing hard. "The original design created too much friction. I focused on process control rather than participation."
"And the results so far?"
I glanced at my tablet, which had pinged twice more since I'd entered her office. "Seven new submissions since the email went out fifteen minutes ago."
"That's promising. But Nathan, why didn't you realise this earlier?"
The question stung, but I answered honestly: "I designed a system that made sense to me without considering how it would feel to others. I was thinking about the destination, not the journey." My phone vibrated. Ten more submissions.
"I've been listening to a podcast," I continued, "that talks about how the environment we create subtly guides decision-making. I created an environment that discouraged participation while expecting the opposite."
"And what have you learned?"
"That leadership isn't about perfect systems, but creating environments where people thrive with minimal resistance. If I want innovation, I need to make innovating easier than not innovating."
Olivia smiled slightly. "Show me in two weeks if this approach works."
One week later, I stared at the dashboard in disbelief. 143 ideas submitted. My redesign had worked… too well. The ideas poured in faster than I could evaluate them, creating a bottleneck that threatened to undermine our initial success.
"Hey Nathan, any movement on my remote onboarding suggestion?" asked Sanjay as he passed my desk.
"Still reviewing it," I mumbled, feeling my face flush. That was the fourth similar inquiry today.
I'd solved one problem only to create another, with myself as the new obstruction. Every idea required my personal review, scoring, and implementation planning. I was drowning.
That night, I revisited The Difference Makers podcast. The host's words hit me like a revelation: "Distribute authority along with responsibility. Leaders who hoard decision-making create systems that move at the speed of one person."
I realised I'd removed friction for idea submission but created a massive bottleneck at implementation—me. I was still clutching control, afraid to trust others with evaluation and execution.
The next morning, I sketched out a new approach: cross-functional "innovation squads" with immediate authority to implement smaller ideas, plus a transparent tracking board showing each idea's journey toward implementation.
I stood in the centre of the conference room, my nervous pulse finally settling as I clicked to the final slide. The room erupted in applause. Some of it polite, perhaps, but much of it genuine. The numbers on the screen told a story even the skeptics couldn't deny: 87 ideas implemented, participation from every department, three major product enhancements in development.
"The secret wasn't creating a perfect system," I explained, catching Olivia's approving nod from the back row. "It was creating the right environment—one where contributing felt natural and rewarding."
I described our weekly celebration rituals, how we showcased small wins rather than waiting for major breakthroughs. How we'd redesigned the invisible architecture of choice at Pulse Technologies to make participation the default path rather than the exceptional one.
As people filed out, Mira, who had submitted our most promising product enhancement, lingered behind.
"That podcast really changed your thinking, huh?" she asked with a knowing smile.
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