Listen Closely to Innovative Ideas

I think willing to listen is difficult. Human beings have pecking orders. The janitor could have brilliant ideas but nobody is going to hear him. Social scientists have done studies and discovered that bosses switch off (automatically, they do not even realize they are doing it) when an underling gets creative. I cannot remember the tests but they had to recall a conversation or something like that and the higher up the tree the other guy was, the greater the recall!

To my shame, I have been there as a boss and I also had a boss who was unbelievably bad for it. Until people recognize that this problem exists in that form (and this behaviour is in every one of us because we are social animals) productivity and creativity will suffer. Basically the social animal "pecking order" brain is much older than the thinking brain and it often takes over even when common sense says it shouldn't.

Actually it was a British janitor who had invented hoover. His prototype included vacuum cleaner. The worst to listen are University Professors, especially those who work with XIX century diesel engine technology. They simply do not comprehend that this is XXI century. The history repeats itself.

In order to inculcate the habit of giving innovative suggestions for improvements, we have used " SUGGESTION BOX " System for employees in our company with excellent results. Any one can put a suggestion, If found good by the committee of experts, the suggester will get a reward depending on the savings to the company. Rangasamy

Hi Samy,

Please, stop this kinds of insanities. With your suggestion, businesses can improve their productivity, make happier customers and pay higher salaries to their employees. Stop that immediately. They don't want such things to happen in their organization. Change is risky! To change something in the company we have to do something differently and we have to do it, check it, modify it, and when is good and satisfactory to customers, approve it, and make it! Simpler is better but everyone like complicated. There is critics when is simple. At complicated suggestion, everyone shut up and don't want to be involved. People like simplicity and don't want to be involved or participate in complicated suggestion. Let the suggestor get the rewards or the blame. This is the simplicity in business.

In plus, you reward the suggestors? Fantastic! Most company's CEO or owner or the boss takes the idea and declare for good without mentioning the originator's name and collect the profit from it.

"Suggestion box" is the first thing to install in any company with mention that "reward" follow good suggestions.

Wait for another "SUGGESTION BOXES" but better and is time to wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR, Gil.

From my experience I think its safe to say that anyone who has spent much time in the working world is very familiar with the intellectual and cognitive shut down effects that happen when people gain a place of influence or power.

I have seen guys who where basically the village idiots of the company somehow mange to weasel their way into a management position where all of a sudden they then think they are the smartest person alive and no one can tell them anything.

They will ask for ideas on things then stare at you like you just started speaking a foreign language if your idea is better than theirs or obviously too complex or complicated for them to ever be able to steal and claim as their own some time later.

I have found that the solution to improving and getting innovative concepts put into effect at times is to know the company pecking order and its work arounds. Managers hate people people who are below them in thir minds who innovate right over their heads but the people above them like those who show the initiative to follow the lesser known company procedures/ work arounds and actually put an effort into solving a problem.

I like the Einstein quote that the thinking that gave us this problem is not likely to be the thinking that solves the problem.

Therefore whenever I ran into an absolutely intractable problem at work, I used a new technique that I had never tried before to solve it.

That is how I taught myself deisgn of experiments, using different designs for different problems.

One such d.o.e. provided such compelling evidence that our investors ponied up an additional investment of many millions.

It was my second d.o.e. Ever.

Milo

Innovative ideas hail from committed employees who think about their job and improvement even beyond the working hours. It is all about the class of persons who are forwarding innovative ideas. Best thing that could be done is to nurture such valuable people.Another caution is to stay away from over smart disbelievers. Status or position level in organizations are immaterial. The Japanese work culture is one among the best to follow.

We accept new ideas to the extent that they don't disturb our old habits.

The metric system is a good example. We use it in our computer: Mega bytes - Gigabytes. We used it in radio: Kilo Hertz. We use it in our currency: Dollars and cents. We use it as long as we don't have to change. We keep the gallon and the inch like a battered woman stays with her husband. She knows that he is bad but she is used to him. We know that the metric system will make our life much easier, save money and avoid a lot of headaches but we would rather stay in our little jail.

I am now trying to replace the old gearbox with a much better solution. In the US very few people listen but I got calls from India without trying.

Are we getting old?

Albert Six

CR4 Admin: Email address removed.

In any company, the experts in the process tend to be the workers who are close to it all the time.

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to get their ideas over to senior management so they can be implemented.

In a largish company, why not appoint an engineer whose job is to seek out innovative ideas from among workers or whoever, work them into an understandable form then present them directly to the CEO.

If the idea is used, the employee who originated it will get a bonus or some suitable incentive to encourage both him and others to keep thinking.

This arrangement would by pass the management block to ideas originating from lower levels of the chain and should encourage innovation in the company, to everyone's benefit.

I've never seen this idea put into practice, although a relative of it used to be used by Lincoln Electric.

What do you think?