I'd like to thank Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder, co-authors of Ideas Are Free, June's Readers' Choice selection, for joining us as guest hosts last week. I've created a stand-alone category that compiles all of their ...READ»
Unfortunately, Paul's experience is all too common. Too many suggest schemes become black holes for ideas - and nothing shuts ideas down faster than managers not following through on them. Understanding the perspective of those ...READ»
The whole issue of how to set the right level of expectations for ideas is less complicated than it sounds. All that companies like Boardroom are doing is saying, in a way that works for them, "if you work here, you are expected to ...READ»
Mark raises an interesting question that comes from the Boardroom Inc. examples in Ideas Are Free. Boardroom requires every employee to offer a minimum of two ideas each week, or the employee loses his or her quarterly bonus. While ...READ»
Mark brings up the point that a poorly designed system only leads to frustration on the part of employees. This can be part of a larger problem - learned helplessness. When employees have learned through experience that they can have ...READ»
I could not agree more with Birgitte's comment. Employees offer ideas because they want to see them used. That's how Idemitsu Kosan (whose idea system has consistently been ranked as one of the top two or three in Japan) and Milliken ...READ»
One of the more far reaching ... and maybe reaching too far ... findings to come out of the Ideas Are Free study was that a great idea system not only improves the quality of employees' work lives, but it also impacts the quality of ...READ»
A number of conversations today about how the ideation process can be so easily skewed bring up perhaps the biggest distortion factor of all: rewards. It's long been known that the prospect of an extrinsic reward undermines a ...READ»
In my earlier comment about where ideas come from I was referring more to a constituency of people - those on the fringes of their organizations, such as part-timers, temps etc. - who were a great source of ideas but are often not ...READ»
One of the interesting pieces of information that we uncovered while doing the research for Ideas Are Free was that some idea schemes show a strong gender bias. This was particularly true with the suggestion systems we saw in Sweden. ...READ»
Heath brings up an interesting point about his company's corporate parent having an on-line "virtual" suggestion box. Historically, suggestion boxes were put in place more as a tool to help improve the culture of the company than to ...READ»
Re today's conversations about where good ideas come from, some of the best ideas come from the people on the fringes of organizations: the new hires, the temporary workers, the third-shifters, the interns, the retirees etc. The ...READ»
The suggestion box sends some not so subtle messages. One is that ideas are not part of everyone's job - they are optional. Employees are not expected to come up with ideas for improvement. But just in case they do, there is the box ...READ»
The concept of an Idea Forum, suggested in an earlier conversation, is a great one. It boosts the quantity and quality of ideas, speeds the response time to them, and develops everyone involved into better problem solvers.
Dean ...READ»
Unfortunately, Roger's experiences with a poorly run idea system are more the rule than the exception, it seems.
Ever since William Denny put up the world's first suggestion box in his shipbuilding company in 1882, suggestion boxes ...READ»
We often encounter managers who challenge a key message in Ideas Are Free -- that a systematic approach to handling employee ideas is required. Typically these people tell us something like this:
Every one of our managers ...READ»
I am enjoying these discussions and have two comments.
The first is re the discussion about maintaining a balance between centralized control and decentralized application of local knowledge and experience. John points out and I ...READ»
Jeff and John bring up some good points. When it comes to getting ideas, we seem to be our own worst enemies. Either our views of what our jobs as managers should be (solving problems and coming up with ideas ourselves) or the way we ...READ»
I saw that article on Studs Terkel. Wasn't it great? It also mentioned a recent study by the Conference Board, which showed that the percentage of workers who were satisfied with their jobs had dropped off 20 percent since 1995, and ...READ»
Funny you should mention Studs Terkel, Alan. Just today in the New York Times, Adam Cohen considers the meaning of Terkel's work 30 years after Working was first published.
When America begins to pay attention to its unhappy work ...READ»
