The Idea-Driven Organization ─ Unlocking the Power in Bottom-Up Ideas

Most companies, if they solicit employee ideas at all, essentially just set up a suggestion box, which employees know from experience is where ideas go to die. So nothing happens. But innovation is not an option—it’s the key to survival. And innovation needs new ideas. So where are those ideas going to come from? Using numerous examples, Robinson and Schroeder argue that the employees who interact directly with your customers, make your products, and provide your services are in the best position to see where problems exist and what improvements and new offerings would have the most impact.

Robinson and Schroeder explain how leaders can build the kind of idea-driven company capable of implementing fifty to a hundred or more ideas per employee per year. Drawing on their work with companies worldwide, they show what’s needed to put together a management team open to grassroots innovation and describe the strategies, policies, and practices that encourage—and those that discourage—employee ideas. They detail exactly how high-performing idea processes work and how to design one customized for your organization—including advice for teaching people how to come up with new ideas. The best ideas may come from the bottom, but they have to be systematically solicited from the top.

Alan G. Robinson is a professor at the Isenberg School of Management of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has served on the board of examiners of the United States Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. His research into the best and worst practices in continuous improvement has won a number of awards and has taken him into organizations in many countries around the world. He has advised more than sixty organizations in some ten countries on how to improve their creativity.

Dean M. Schroeder currently serves as the associate dean and director of graduate programs in management and is the Herbert and Agnes Schulz Professor of Management at Valparaiso University in Northwest Indiana. He has served on the board of examiners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, is on the board of directors of the American Creativity Association, and has served on several corporate boards.