Articles

Ask for Ideas – The Ideas are Free

Jana M. Kemp

Have you ever considered the money you may be walking past every day? Here’s what I mean: Whenever a good idea goes unheard, your organization is potentially leaving money on the table because you’re not asking for ideas. New ideas from employees, customers, or vendors can generate new efficiencies, new products and new processes than can help you save money, make more money, or even do both. A new book from authors Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder is titled “Ideas Are Free” (Berrett Koehler, 2004) and outlines how to generate and implement ideas that can change your organization for the better.

In 8 chapters, “Ideas are Free” delivers on two key premises: 1. most people have lots of ideas and want to share those ideas with their managers and 2. “knowing how to promote employee ideas will become a critical core competency for managers.” The authors include plenty of examples from organizations and companies that have implemented an idea generation and action process. These stories support the idea process presented and it’s a process you can implement too. Discussions include: “The need for managerial humility,” “Ideas and respect, trust, and involvement,” and “How ideas counter learned helplessness.” Chapter 4 covers how to “make ideas everyone’s job” and discusses how to make ideas part of employee, supervisory, middle manager and senior leader jobs. The characteristics needed by an organization for putting an idea process in place are described in Chapter 5. Every chapter closes with a key points review and a template for taking action that is called “Guerilla Tactics.”

Ideas often come from observations. Lately, I’ve noticed more cars than usual parked along the side of our Treasure Valley roads. So, I asked around to find out why the increase in cars having to be towed. The resounding answer: “people aren’t doing the minimum car maintenance, like oil changes, and so their cars break down.” And here’s the resulting free idea that will cost you a bit to do, but that will cost you less than a tow and a bigger repair bill: Get your car tuned up and the oil changed on a regular basis. Do the minimum maintenance and you’ll be less likely to have mechanical problems that leave you with greater inconvenience and a bigger bill. Of course, this applies to cars, tools, machinery and equipment in the workplace too. Review your equipment and vehicle maintenance plan and take action to keep things in good repair.

Action Plan: Ask for employee and customer ideas. Listen for ideas that can be implemented to make your workflow and workplace better than ever.
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Reprint Permission: The author is willing to grant reprint permissions. Please contact Jana Kemp: jana@janakemp.com or call 208-367-1701.