Comments on: Management Innovation: Yes, your employees have brains! http://www.metricz.com/2008/04/management-innovation-yes-your-employees-have-brains/ Drive Success. Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:03:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Jesse Kliza http://www.metricz.com/2008/04/management-innovation-yes-your-employees-have-brains/#comment-43 Jesse Kliza Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:14:55 +0000 http://www.metricz.com/?p=84#comment-43 Sinclair - Good point. By asking for brain power, you are definitely setting up an environment that can avoid significant failure. If only because you no longer have all of your eggs in one basket so to speak. Leonard - Thanks for the encouragement! As you brought up, employees taking ownership of their jobs is so critical. I love your HVLC Innovation system. Great stuff! I'd love to chat with you more about it. Josh - I completely agree that organizations absolutely need to have a process for managing and acting on the great ideas that will come from asking. After asking comes nurturing/managing the ideas, and after nurturing comes executing/acting on the ideas. Your point about providing feedback to make sure that employees doing feel like things are going into a black hole cannot be understated. That is so vital. Sinclair - Good point. By asking for brain power, you are definitely setting up an environment that can avoid significant failure. If only because you no longer have all of your eggs in one basket so to speak.

Leonard - Thanks for the encouragement! As you brought up, employees taking ownership of their jobs is so critical.

I love your HVLC Innovation system. Great stuff! I’d love to chat with you more about it.

Josh - I completely agree that organizations absolutely need to have a process for managing and acting on the great ideas that will come from asking. After asking comes nurturing/managing the ideas, and after nurturing comes executing/acting on the ideas.

Your point about providing feedback to make sure that employees doing feel like things are going into a black hole cannot be understated. That is so vital.

]]> By: Josh Clifford http://www.metricz.com/2008/04/management-innovation-yes-your-employees-have-brains/#comment-42 Josh Clifford Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:54:52 +0000 http://www.metricz.com/?p=84#comment-42 I could not agree with you more. All too often I talk to CEOs trying to make strategic decisions or solve critical problems and when I ask them if they have asked their internal people what they think the right direction is I am met with a blank stare. I would also suggest that beyond just asking an organization needs a process for taking action on the great ideas that will come out of asking. We are struggling to find the best system or systems to facilitate the process but we currently collect data in a survey tool, create open conversation about the ideas in another tool, and then prioritize and implement ideas in a project tool. We quickly found that we needed to provide feedback, visibility, priority, and input into the ideas generated so that employees did not feel like things were going into a black hole. I believe Michael Dell is known for making each of his employees give him one improvement recommendation each meeting in their early days – perhaps he has the ideal tool for facilitating this process! Josh Clifford www.smbitpros.com I could not agree with you more. All too often I talk to CEOs trying to make strategic decisions or solve critical problems and when I ask them if they have asked their internal people what they think the right direction is I am met with a blank stare.

I would also suggest that beyond just asking an organization needs a process for taking action on the great ideas that will come out of asking. We are struggling to find the best system or systems to facilitate the process but we currently collect data in a survey tool, create open conversation about the ideas in another tool, and then prioritize and implement ideas in a project tool.

We quickly found that we needed to provide feedback, visibility, priority, and input into the ideas generated so that employees did not feel like things were going into a black hole.

I believe Michael Dell is known for making each of his employees give him one improvement recommendation each meeting in their early days – perhaps he has the ideal tool for facilitating this process!

Josh Clifford

http://www.smbitpros.com

]]> By: Leonard Bertain http://www.metricz.com/2008/04/management-innovation-yes-your-employees-have-brains/#comment-41 Leonard Bertain Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:57:29 +0000 http://www.metricz.com/?p=84#comment-41 I have been doing programs in companies for 25 years that extracted some phenomenal ideas from the lowest level employees and you are spot on: Innovation in a company starts with a little management humility. And when that happens a whole lot of things happen, ideas flow, profits go up and products start to fly through the process as employees begin to take ownership of their jobs. I have done this in over 150 companies and have run 25,000 employees through our training program and believe me "Employees do have brains." I just found your website and I like what you are saying. Regards, Leonard Bertain, Ph.D. len@bertain.com Oakland, CA I have been doing programs in companies for 25 years that extracted some phenomenal ideas from the lowest level employees and you are spot on: Innovation in a company starts with a little management humility. And when that happens a whole lot of things happen, ideas flow, profits go up and products start to fly through the process as employees begin to take ownership of their jobs. I have done this in over 150 companies and have run 25,000 employees through our training program and believe me “Employees do have brains.” I just found your website and I like what you are saying.

Regards,

Leonard Bertain, Ph.D.
len@bertain.com
Oakland, CA

]]> By: Sinclair Schuller http://www.metricz.com/2008/04/management-innovation-yes-your-employees-have-brains/#comment-40 Sinclair Schuller Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:24:33 +0000 http://www.metricz.com/?p=84#comment-40 Jesse, you're absolutely correct. Oddly enough, being in the tech space where workers are highly skilled, it baffles me when management doesn't take professional input on a regular basis. From the perspective of the company, utilizing that brainpower within the organization is in step with the mantra "One ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" If you ask for just hands, you're most likely tossing prevention out the window. However, when you ask for brainpower, you're setting up an environment that can avoid significant failure. Jesse, you’re absolutely correct. Oddly enough, being in the tech space where workers are highly skilled, it baffles me when management doesn’t take professional input on a regular basis.

From the perspective of the company, utilizing that brainpower within the organization is in step with the mantra “One ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” If you ask for just hands, you’re most likely tossing prevention out the window. However, when you ask for brainpower, you’re setting up an environment that can avoid significant failure.

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