Jeffrey Phillips has a great blog post today called " Bounded Innovation." 

So its a cool coincidence that I was talking with a client about exactly the same topic this morning.  A group of middle managers and I were hashing out the goals and desired outcomes of an idea generation session surrounding employee engagement when they bristled as I mentioned that I typically let the participants guide the direction of the session. 

A typical response...especially from the mid-levels of an organization.  These are people very accustomed to leading by managing and directing.  Allowing their subordinates to set any kind of direction takes them far, far outside their comfort level.

Now, I am not a complete idiot.  Good facilitators lead without anyone really noticing.  The easiest way to get a group to set their own direction is to have them agree, right up front, and through a various number of collaborative methods, to the boundaries within which they are going to contain themselves.  Everyone agrees that everyone else is able to think as far as their imaginations will take them in coming up with great new ideas or idea combinations.  But everyone is also aware of the invisible but tangible boundary that working on a specifically defined problem will produce.  Or the realistic boundary that will limit action on certain ideas at the next level of scrutiny.

Project management is a great example of this conflict.  Project Managers are told to not allow deviation from the prescribed plan.  But if you can still meet the desired results, within the triumvirate of cost, quality and time, what's the harm of wild and unbridled creativity?  None.  And that's what makes me a "Process Deviant" and "Intentional Disrupter."  Yes...I am proud of those titles...but even more proud of my results.