A Psychological Approach
GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato
LAST UPDATED: January 11, 2026 at 10:20AM
In my work advising organizations on human-centered change, I frequently encounter a persistent paradox. Companies desperately crave innovation — they want speed, efficiency, and competitive advantage. Yet, when presented with a proven solution from the outside — whether it be software, a methodology, or an acquired technology — organizational antibodies kick in fiercely. This is the “Not Invented Here” (NIH) syndrome. It is the irrational rejection of external ideas simply because they originated outside the tribal boundaries of the organization.
Many leaders treat NIH as a logical issue. They try to overcome it with data sheets, ROI calculators, and feature comparisons. And they almost always fail. Why? Because NIH is not a logic problem; it is a psychological defense mechanism. To overcome it, we must stop treating it like an engineering flaw and start treating it like a human reaction to a perceived threat.
The Psychology of Resistance
At its core, NIH is rooted in identity, control, and fear. When an internal team has spent years building a custom CRM system, that system is no longer just software; it is a manifestation of their competence, their long hours, and their professional identity. Introducing an external, superior SaaS product isn’t just a platform migration; it feels like an invalidation of their past work.
Furthermore, organizations suffer from the “Unique Snowflake” fallacy — the deeply held belief that their problems are so uniquely complex that no generic, external solution could possibly address them. Admitting that an outsider solved “our” problem faster and better induces cognitive dissonance. The easiest way to resolve that tension is by rejecting the outsider’s solution as inferior or irrelevant.
“You cannot data-whip an organization into adopting an external idea. ‘Not Invented Here’ is rarely a debate about technical merit; it is a debate about identity and control. If you want to accelerate innovation adoption, you must first lower the psychological cost of acceptance.” — Braden Kelley
Reframing the Narrative: From Threat to Accelerant
To move past NIH, change leaders must utilize psychology to re-frame the introduction of external innovation. We must shift the narrative from “replacing internal efforts” to “accelerating internal capabilities.” The goal is to turn the internal teams from gatekeepers fearing displacement into curators and integrators empowered by new tools.
Here are two examples of how addressing the psychological dimensions of NIH led to successful adoption.
Case Study 1: The “Broken” Acquisition
A large enterprise software company acquired a nimble startup that had developed a superior machine learning algorithm. The strategic plan was to integrate this algorithm into the parent company’s flagship suite immediately. The acquisition was met with hostility by the internal R&D team. They nitpicked the startup’s code structure, claimed it wouldn’t scale to their volume, and insisted their own solution (which was years away from completion) would ultimately be better.
The Psychological Shift: Instead of forcing the integration from the top down, leadership pivoted. They created a “Tiger Team” comprised mostly of the most vocal internal critics. Their mandate was not to integrate the new tech, but to audit it for security and scalability weaknesses.
By giving the internal team control and validating their expertise as the “scalability guardians,” the psychological threat was lowered. In the process of deep auditing, the internal engineers realized the elegance of the startup’s solution. They went from detractors to owners. They didn’t just adopt the technology; they felt they had “fixed” it for enterprise use, effectively making it “invented here” through the rigorous integration process.
Case Study 2: The Manufacturing Methodology
A mid-sized manufacturing firm was suffering from significant quality control issues and high waste. Consultants recommended adopting a specific Lean Six Sigma methodology used successfully by larger competitors. The shop floor foremen immediately resisted. Their argument was classic NIH: “That works for high-volume car manufacturers, but we make specialized medical devices. Our processes are too unique for that cookie-cutter approach.”
The Psychological Shift: The leadership realized that imposing an “external” process felt disrespectful to the foremen’s years of tacit knowledge. They stopped calling it the “Lean program.” Instead, they launched an internal “Operational Excellence Challenge.”
They asked the foremen to identify their biggest bottlenecks data-wise. Once identified, leadership presented tools from the external methodology simply as “options in a toolkit” that the foremen could choose to experiment with. By allowing the internal team to self-diagnose the problem and select the external tool to fix it, the solution became theirs. They weren’t adopting an outside methodology; they were leveraging outside tools to build their own homegrown solution.
Conclusion: Honoring the Human Element
Overcoming Not Invented Here requires empathy more than evidence. It requires leaders to understand that resistance is usually a form of protection — protection of status, pride, and identity. By involving internal teams early in the evaluation process, giving them agency over how external solutions are adapted, and rewarding integration as highly as invention, we can turn organizational antibodies into delivery mechanisms for innovation.
Frequently Asked Questions About NIH Syndrome
Is “Not Invented Here” syndrome always bad for a company?
What are the earliest warning signs of NIH syndrome?
How can leadership inadvertently encourage NIH syndrome?
Leaders often accidentally incentivize NIH by exclusively celebrating “inventors” who build things from scratch, while failing to recognize and reward the “integrators” who successfully identify, adapt, and implement external innovations to create value rapidly.
Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.
Image credits: 1 of 1,000+ quote slides available at http://misterinnovation.com
Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.