Give Staff A ‘Safe’ Way To Offer Ideas
A firm’s most valuable asset is the individual and collective knowledge of its employees. This resource can provide an enterprise with an unparalleled edge in the marketplace. A reader wants to know how to tap into this valuable commodity.
Q. In your last column you made the case for building and sharing knowledge in an enterprise. Any recommendations for getting employees to open up and share what they have with others?
A. Gold has no value until it is found and mined. The same holds true for ideas and insights. The trick is to create an environment that encourages self-expression, even if an employee isn’t completely confident that his or her contribution has value.
Most people must feel “safe” in order to expose themselves in untested or unproven ways. It’s your job to provide a non-threatening forum for expression.
Although today’s workforce is the most educated in history, employees still shrink from risking embarrassment or becoming the butt an unfavorable critique.
Hence, they are reluctant to associate themselves (and their for careers) with a wild or crazy - or simply dumb - idea. It’s better, they believe, to be frustrated than to be ridiculed.
As a consequence, the bulk of this nation’s creative, innovative, intellectual and experience-bred power goes unused. The average employee in the United States submits only .17 ideas per year compared with 32.4 ideas per worker in Japan.
Quite probably, the dearth of ideas domestically reflects the cold shoulder they receive in the workplace. The implementation rate for new ideas in Japan is 87 percent; in the U.S. it’s only 32 percent.
Here are a few tips for boosting the flow and exchange of knowledge in your firm: Make sure your employees share a broad, inclusive vision of your firm’s potential. The bigger the canvas, the more expressive the picture they can create. A specific, unilateral mission statement that comes down from the top narrows the receivers’ thinking and discourages “nonconforming,” creative contributions.
Maintain an atmosphere of uncertainty, not certainty. If workers feel that you know everything - and that they should - they will be reluctant to show themselves as foragers, finders and explorers, essential roles of the thinker. It’s been said that “lack of discovery is the price we pay for certainty.”
Use meetings, not memos. People in group gatherings tend to cross-pollinate, to share ideas and build on them as open discourse progresses.
Work in teams, not committees. The purpose of a committee is to reach acceptable consensus on an issue. The goal of a team is operational. A team is assigned to meet a challenge, solve a problem, or effect a tangible result.
Trade, don’t teach. Information is conveyed most effectively through free exchange, not through a lecture.
Use metaphors not manuals. Truly unique ideas and experiences are generally difficult to express cogently in words.
Use intimacy; eschew formality. The manager and the managed should share personal understandings and appreciations of one another. A comfortable friendship, wherein personal familiarity is encouraged, will breed more open, unintimidated, well-purposed exchanges.
Interrogate, don’t be indifferent. Often, the only way to learn something is to ask. And once somebody opens up, don’t forget the three most important words in an inquisitive boss’s vocabulary: “Tell me more.”
Rely on tolerance, not templates. Be willing to allow people to do things their way, to experiment, and - perish the thought - fail without fear of unreasonable retribution.
Supply active approbation not passive acceptance. Be generous and sincere in expressing your appreciation for the knowledge your employees contribute. Sure, they get paid for doing their job, but, remember, you want much more than that. You should demand the best they can give, and the rewards they receive should reflect that value.
xxxx Paul Willax is a professor of entrepreneurship and the Chairman of the Center for Business Ownership Inc.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Paul Willax The Spokesman-Review