What do turtles have to do with innovation? Not much, we thought, until we ran across a retail manager at a big box store in San Diego during the course of our research and clinical work for Judgment on the Front Line . That manager pulled us aside to explain that most employees–particularly those at the bottom of the hierarchy who serviced customers–were treated like turtles at many companies.

If you buy a turtle and put it into a small aquarium, it will stop growing to accommodate its limited living space, regardless of how large it might have potentially been. This is a phenomenon that often outrages animal activists because urban apartment dwellers who fancy diminutive turtles typically don’t look after them very well. In truth, the turtles stop growing because they not only have limited room to reach their potential but are also malnourished and poorly treated.

The manager’s point was more profound than a biology lesson. The companies where he had worked had boxed in frontline employees with rules, bureaucracy, and hierarchy that stunted their personal growth and organizational contribution. Those at the top of the organization not only failed to ask for ideas but were often dismissive when associates offered suggestions. When middle managers and senior leaders claim that frontline leaders lack the necessary strategic context or see criticism of organizational processes only as resistance to change, they have the same limiting effect as the turtle tank. Employees never achieve their potential and the organization misses out on great ideas and potential innovations.

In the worst cases, those who occupy senior or mid-level leadership positions become HiPPOs who quash the creativity of the people around them. Relying on gut feel, the “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion” (or HiPPO) tends to override genuine customer insight in hierarchical organizations that assume intelligence and capability are correlated to a person’s job title. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the pernicious effects that a few HiPPOs and Turtle Farmers can have on the willingness of people to contribute their ideas or engage in problem solving.

Despite all the cries for more innovation we routinely hear in many companies, the truth we too often find is that most organizations have overlaid a pastiche of initiatives on top of a command-and-control structure designed for a mass production era. Most companies lack a blueprint for how to truly arm frontline leaders to better serve their customers and generate ideas that can reap potential windfalls when applied across the enterprise.

As opposed to treating frontline employees as their most valuable asset, many companies fail to engage them at all. Several studies have asked employees to self-identify the percent of their potential contribution they actually give to their organizations. Not surprising, the figures range as low as 30% and tend toward 50%. Put that in the context of the average payroll and HR budgets, particularly of larger companies spending tens of millions annually, and you have to ask how any self-respecting businessperson can live with that level of inefficiency. Imagine the value that would be destroyed and waste created if every manufacturing organization simply accepted 50% productivity. There is an idea-generating engine and innovation factory that remains untapped in most organizations simply because leaders do not know how to connect the experiences and insights of their front line to solving customer problems.

It’s the paradox of all organizations that they require control yet succeed most spectacularly when they unleash the imagination and energy of their employees. Companies cannot afford to give up either one but their perceived inability to manage the operational risk of putting more power in the hands of rank-and-file employees tends to tilt the balance strongly in favor of control.