Are Management & Staff open to new ideas and suggestions?

sunandaC

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• Before a Suggestion Scheme/Box can be implemented you must consider whether a climate for innovation exist in the organization. For instance, can any individual answer yes to these two types of questions: "In my business unit new ideas are welcomed and management is willing to support you in the subsequent implementation".

• "People in my Business unit are open-minded and accept the possibility that there may be better ways of achieving the same objectives"

It is my belief that you will be asking people to be creative and innovative and yet most people don’t believe that they are creative or, are stifled when they are. You will have to provide interventions such as training to enable staff to think beyond the boundaries.

Your aim should be: " How can we stimulate the creative thinking of our people". There is enormous creative potential locked inside the heads of staff, "How can we tap it?"
It starts way before a suggestion box or a suggestion scheme.

Every Organisation suffers from innovation inhibitors – attitudes and policies that limit the search for new ideas. For example, a group of senior managers at a large educational research institution reported recently that managers tend to resist good ideas suggested by subordinates. That is a clear organisational inhibitor to innovation.

In order for the suggestion scheme to work you will have to create awareness of these inhibitors and provide interventions to overcome them. You could for example run a course, on Creativity and Innovation for Senior Management, covering topics such as types of creativity and the creative process, types of thinking, characteristics of the creative organisation, methods to stimulate creativity and innovation and breaking the barriers to corporate creativity.

This will start to create a climate in which suggestions can flourish.Here is some specific notes on suggestion boxes/schemes that you can use. The suggestion scheme can be approached from two angles i.e.:
• A new idea scheme
• A cost saving scheme
 
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