I attended an internal demonstration session that showed employees a new extranet e-commerce website our organization developed ....for the world to use.

I suggested a small thing which apparently had been intensely discussed in planning meetings. Great controversy with our IT dept. So great, that the lead person from IT, walked out of the room shortly after I made my suggestion. I understood that it was an offense to him later...because the website won an award. (Probably in the IT world.)

But I never knew since I wasn't part of the product development team nor part of the user test group.

Meanwhile everyone else in the room thought it was great I spoke up.

I'm not so sure I want to be known for maverick suggestions. When really, it was a tiny (but important) change to enhance web site usability.

Not knowing organizational sensitivities can be a drag.