Dear Bob ... Over the past year, I have grown strong discontent for upper and executive management in my company regarding to their constant preaching of "think outside the box", "explore new options", rah-rah speeches at quarterly meetings and other large IT gatherings. "Do More With Less" has become a way of life, not to mention a few other currently popular catch (cliche) phrases. My disconten Dear Bob …Over the past year, I have grown strong discontent for upper and executive management in my company regarding to their constant preaching of “think outside the box”, “explore new options”, rah-rah speeches at quarterly meetings and other large IT gatherings. “Do More With Less” has become a way of life, not to mention a few other currently popular catch (cliche) phrases.My discontent stems from the fact that every incident I have seen or personally been involved with that went outside of the conventional way of doing business has not only been ignored or out right shot down, but the “outside the box” initiative was passed on for more of the same “spend money to solve the problem” actions. It has gotten to the point where my entire team at one point was ready to offer our services to a competing company. Any advice on what one might do to stay positive when working in an environment where all upper management seems to know is spend money, complain about costs, and cite IT centered commercial catch phrases for motivation?– Treading Stagnant WatersDear Stagnant … Annoying, isn’t it? If you haven’t figured it out by now, it’s a lot easier to encourage employees to think outside the box than to actually take the risk of putting out-of-the-box ideas into production where you’ll find out if they were right or not.Which is to say, lots of companies say they want to encourage risk-taking, but very few are willing to accept the project failures that are a necessary concommittant of taking risks.What can you do about it? You can learn to ignore the nonsense, stop suggesting ideas that won’t be adopted, and focus on getting your work done, or you can leave to work for a different company, hoping that in the next one management will mean what it says. There is one other possibility – that you aren’t giving your management enough credit. They might be receptive to out-of-the-box ideas, but not so receptive that they’ll accept them just because they’re mentioned and sound plausible.I don’t know how you and your colleagues have gone about suggesting different ways of doing things in the past. If you haven’t done this before, the next time you come up with an idea you think is worth pursuing, sit down with your manager and ask what he/she will need to see in order to evaluate it and decide to move forward on it. This shouldn’t be a perfunctory discussion. And it should finish with your confirming that if you follow the process the two of you agree to, your idea will be seriously considered.Once you have this discussion, don’t just vanish until you’re done: Meet with your manager on a regular basis to provide progress reports. This is selling, pure and simple, and every good sales professional knows that selling is a process, not an event. Having to go through this kind of process isn’t a bad thing, either. It’s like this: Out-of-the-box solutions are riskier than the same old same old. Out of the box solutions that haven’t been thoroughly explored are even riskier … and worse, they’re riskier than they have to be.– Bob ——– Technology Industry