Idea-friendly environment

From HMCwiki

Every organization wants to be the best, with staff engaged in making it better. Yet the biggest hindrance to this happening today is that most organizations don’t have an idea-friendly environment; environments where ideas are welcome, developed, justified, resourced, implemented, recognized and shared. Few have a strategy to encourage, develop and integrate ideas and innovation into the way work is done. Creativity is something relegated to large breakthroughs and change. The sad thing is, in this global age, the company that doesn’t continually come up with fresh ideas throughout the organization will lose its competitive edge.

There is a wealth of ideas and empowerment locked up in employees in every organization. The reason managers don’t get employees with a bulldog mentality against waste is they don’t have the mindset or the infrastructure to honor and propagate ideas. Ideas are fragile, for a piece of the owner comes with each and they risk ridicule and rejection. The biggest waste is the greatest idea that died because of leadership neglect. The recommended elements below apply to small individual ideas and larger scale proven practices.

Procedure:

1. Pull together your leadership team and define breadth and depth of idea generation and implementation
2. Use the actions below as a pick list to determine the changes needed for your environment: financial, political, informational that can be harnessed for the employee participation effort.
3. Note that the elements below apply to an idea program that is supported from the top down as well an individual department.

Leadership support

• Strategic link between idea employee empowerment, idea generation and the ultimate service/product are established and understood at all management levels.
• Leadership position on the importance of idea generation and implementation is established and consistent.
• Formal or Informal position is established on time apportioned toward improvement.
• Compelling case for change (sense of urgency, shared need) for idea generation to become mainstream crafted, tested and communicated.
• Leadership performance measures, recognition and pressure system includes:
  • an innovation index (quantity and value/per employee) for each area
  • a collaborative index (upstream/downstream/ultimate customer impacts)
• Communication plan is in place (message/mode/frequency) elevating importance of employee engagement established. “If it’s not on senior leaderships lips, it’s not on the employees’ mind.”… Tata Steel
• A budget is set for idea intra and interdepartmental idea implementation.
• Criteria for business case idea acceptance is set. (i.e. a 2-year on-paper return on investment)
• Interdepartmental collaboration guidelines established and communicated.

Idea infrastructure

• Idea form designed and available to the workforce.
• Idea qualification criteria established.
• Idea stimulation designed and deployed (example: affirmative judgment)
• Idea evaluation process and feedback cycle established, communicated and followed.
• Idea adoption integration structure in place.
• Idea implementation progress system established.
• Idea acknowledgement and award system in place.
• Idea assistance for operationalizing ideas across departments.

Idea broadcasting (means)

• Hardcopy newsletter
• Electronic newsletter
• Proven practices searchable database (web accessed)
• Internal departmental idea board

Idea integration

• Idea evaluated for integration of adoption
  • Is it adoption only local to the department? (applicability only in department)
  • Is adoption optional? (adoption made available to those who find its merit)
  • Is adoption required? (adoption is mandated because of its obvious benefit)
• Leadership communication structure in place to share and propagate idea adoption.

Idea reward and acknowledgement

• Guidelines for idea acknowledgement and payout set
  • Token dollar of appreciation
  • Awards, thank you notes
  • Acknowledgement among department, division, organization
  • Bonus points on annual performance evaluation
• Performance management system adjusted to accommodate the expectation for idea generation. This applies to both employees and managers.

How to get ideas to flow

Your staff isn’t short on ideas, just an environment to ready to receive them. To the manager who wants to engage her staff in change, put these in place and watch the ideas flow.

Honoring ideas

If an idea could tell its story, this is what it would say to the manager.

References and resources

Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle

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