HMCwiki:This month’s featured article/July 2008

From HMCwiki

Harvesting ideas yields empowerment, innovation, service, and quality. The ability to collect ideas is critical as work demands become greater, change happens faster, margins become thinner, and resources become scarcer. How does an organization continually harvest ideas to stay ahead of the curve?

A large part of the answer is right under our nose. The answer is in the staff we hire to run the business. They are trained at carrying out policies and procedures, but shouldn't they be trained to look for waste, in its many hidden forms, as well as improve the work they engage in each day? Are they tuned to a customer’s desires? Do they know the value of even one missed opportunity and how it impacts the bottom line? Do they know how to offer up legitimate idea proposals and does management know how to treasure this input?

Most staff are trained how to do their jobs but not how to improve upon it. Thus, bad habits die hard. As a manager or management engineer: here’s your chance to open the floodgates of employee engagement, and to have all eyes looking for ways to make a cumulative difference. The largest hindrance to this type of employee engagement is that most organizations don’t have an idea-friendly environment; for example, environments where ideas are welcome, developed, justified, resourced, implemented, recognized and shared. If there are no deliberate processes, communication plans, and job aids to facilitate each of these steps, it’s no wonder legitimate ideas aren't coming. As Dutch Holland of Holland & Davis Inc.^[1] put it: 'If we don't run the business, we won't eat tomorrow; if we don't change the business, we won't be here next year'. In the early 90's the typical Japanese worker was implementing 32 ideas per employee per year. Their American counterpart... 1 idea every 8 years. So what will it take to turn the corner? What's missing? (continued...)