If you're tied down by your job description, you restrain your impact. It's self-limiting behavior. It becomes a vicious, self-fulfilling prophecy
Last year, Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati met with the marketing department of a large American corporation and posed a seemingly simple question: What do marketing people actually do?
But when Gulati asks managers in finance, HR, and marketing departments whether they've tried to foster innovation, they sometimes go into a victim routine. "They say, 'Oh, they don't listen to me. I don't have a seat at the table. When I try they tell me to get out of here, so I regress to my role as a little bureaucratic turtle guy who throws orders at them.' It goes from a collaborative to an adversarial situation, and it's just a lost opportunity."
This article was provided with permission from Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.