Have you ever suspected that leaders are more inclined to act on ideas that come from people outside an organization rather than within?

If you have, you may be onto something, according to research from Kellogg professor of management and organizations Leigh Thompson. And it could come down to professional jealousy.

“We found that one of the biggest reasons leaders may devalue the ideas of insiders is that these insiders (and their ideas) represent more of a threat. ‘Their ideas are so good that upper management may want to fire me and promote them into my job!’” Thompson wrote in The Wall Street Journal about the research.

We will hear more about her research (including how to mitigate this bias against company insiders) today. Then, we’ll learn why some people are willing to pay so much for trash bags—and what this says about the importance of conducting qualitative customer research.

Intimidated managers aren’t as receptive

In a series of studies, Thompson and her colleagues found that managers tended to devalue ideas that came from their own subordinates compared with those that came from outside of their organization.

Why? One reason is that managers viewed these ideas as a threat: perhaps they could be replaced by their clever subordinate!

As a result, explains Thompson, managers “minimized the time they invested in learning about the idea and, even more notably, reduced the research-and-development funds they would invest in exploring the idea. Conversely, when faced with viable ideas from outsiders, managers didn’t feel as personally threatened and were more willing to pursue the ideas.”

Yikes. But there is some good news here, too, because the researchers also identified a tactic that lowered managers’ defenses: self-affirmation. Managers who were asked to reflect on a personal value prior to hearing an internal employee’s idea were more willing to embrace the employee’s pitch.

“What we know from research on self-identity is that when we focus on our most important values, we affirm ourselves,” Thompson says.

Thompson proposes a way forward for people on either side of this situation. If you want to pitch your boss on an idea, make sure to emphasize the idea rather than yourself. “For example, instead of running into your manager’s office and saying something like, ‘I’m so confident about this new idea,’ go with, ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about your vision for the company and have an idea that speaks to that,” Thompson says.

On the flip side, managers who struggle to embrace internal ideas should remind themselves of their own values before entering a brainstorming session.

For more details, you can read Thompson’s full piece in The Wall Street Journal here.

To better understand customers … think like an anthropologist

In the (likely) event that you’ve already scrolled through social media today, you’ve probably seen a product ad that’s pretty well-tailored to your interests. Such targeting is based on troves of data brands have at their fingertips.

But data doesn’t always get at the why behind customers’ choices, says clinical assistant professor Gina Fong. “When you look at consumer behavior, it’s like there’s a firewall between people’s behavior and the motivation behind it,” she says.

This is why Fong, a consumer anthropologist, believes that observing consumers in their natural habitat is so important.

A few years ago, Fong worked with a trash-bag company that had a segment of customers willing to spend double to triple what a typical customer might spend on the right trash bag. The issue was that the company didn’t know why these consumers were so deeply invested in a utility product.

Through Fong’s ethnographic research, she discovered that this segment of customers lived in high-rise apartments or walk-up buildings. Every day, they would have to drag their trash bag across a hallway or down the stairs to the dumpster.

“If their trash bag broke at any point in the process, they would be at least 20 minutes late to work,” Fong says. “For them, the trash bag was an investment in their ability to start their day on the right foot.”

Equipped with this insight, the company was able to better differentiate itself from competitors in its advertising by promoting the bags’ toughness.

You can read more about Fong’s insights here.