Rewards
By Peter LloydThere's no shortage of experts willing to tell you, for a fee, what it is that will make your employees generate more and better ideas. Be careful. It's a lot easier than you think. I say, if you just listen to your people and start putting their ideas into practice, you'll do just fine.
But if you really feel you need advice, let me tell you how one major corporation set out to make every employee an idea generator, and blew it.
This international concern created an elaborate system. After announcing that everybody was invited to generate and contribute ideas, they promised that every idea would be considered, evaluated, and acted upon immediately. Forms were printed, task force leaders were named, and every office staged its own creative pep rally where the program was introduced.
What went wrong? At one pep rally, it was announced that the best ideas would be rewarded. Not a bad idea. But someone asked, "What's the reward?" The head cheerleader took the question as an affront, and snapped back something about attitude.
As the employees left the pep rally, they were heard grumbling, "As if we don't have enough to do. Now they want us to do their job, too."
So the person who asked, "What's the reward?" wrote out and submitted the first idea. It read in part, "Let's define the reward more clearly, so that people know what they're working for."
Contrary to the program's first promise, the submission was ignored.
Now you know what not to do.
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.