Case file
Not Invented Here
- Filed under
- Not Enough Meaning
- Also recorded as
- NIH syndrome
The charge
Not invented here is rejecting outside ideas or solutions mainly because they came from outside the group.
How it operates
External solutions can threaten identity, status, and control, so local ownership gets confused with quality.
Logged incidents
- Incident 01
Engineering rebuilds a commodity tool instead of buying it.
- Incident 02
A company ignores a customer-created workaround that fixes onboarding.
- Incident 03
A regional team rejects an HQ playbook before testing it.
What to watch for
Ask: Would I like this idea more if my team had invented it?
Recommended action
Benchmark external options and reward adoption quality, not authorship.
Known associates
- Out-Group Homogeneity BiasOut-group homogeneity bias is seeing people outside your group as more similar to each other than they really…
- Cross-Race EffectCross-race effect is the tendency to be worse at distinguishing faces of races one has had less experience…
- In-Group FavoritismIn-group favoritism is preferring, trusting, or rewarding people seen as part of your own group.
- Halo EffectHalo effect is when one positive trait or first impression spills over into unrelated judgments about the…
- Cheerleader EffectCheerleader effect is the tendency for people to seem more attractive or appealing when seen in a group than…
- Positivity EffectPositivity effect is giving relatively more weight to positive information or memories than negative ones,…
Source of record