Page 82 - The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership

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Suggestion schemes can work provided people on all sides know that:
• all ideas from everyone will be listened to

• every idea deserves thanks
• some ideas will not work
• a forum for ideas assists the process of innovation.

Recognition (and selection) of ideas to be pursued should be on
the basis that the idea can show:

• originality of thought
• ultimate benefit to the customer
• business potential
• quality improvement

• cost savings
• viability in implementation.

In sieving ideas,three questions should be asked (as Henry Ford did):

1 Is it needed?
2 Is it practical?

3 Is it commercial?

Project teams can drive an idea forward to its successful innovation
by remembering three strategies which work and they are to:
1 recruit a senior sponsor
2 run a pilot project or experiment

3 present innovation as a gradual/incremental development.

Brainstorming (getting a large number of ideas from a group in a
short time) can produce ideas (which then have to be sieved and
tested) and Alexander Osborn’s rules are hard to beat:

• Suspend judgement – no criticism or evaluation

72 The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership