Dr. Deming said, “Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning. The theory is a window into the world. The theory leads to prediction. Without prediction, experience and examples teach nothing”.
This famous saying is truly applicable in the arena of ‘Creativity’, as what the creative mind conceives has to pass through the crucibles of business dynamics to prove its worthiness for business growth and sustainability.
Employees’ creativity shall be focused on the business objective and have perfect alignment with the organization’s vision & mission, even though its approaches may be multi-dimensional.
After spending a long inning in the industry with various employee involvement & engagement initiatives, serving a decade as Managing Council Member of Indian National Suggestion Schemes Association and getting associated with various HR & Business Excellence assessments, I had come across flip flops of various Idea Management Schemes.
Today, concepts such as the new economy, new technologies, hyper-competition, and clock speed illustrate that the dynamics involved in competition and on the markets have never been greater than this.
Thus, there is a large focus on the concept of idea management especially on useful & innovative idea management in particular. The need for companies to become more innovative has probably never been greater. Small and medium-sized companies (MSME) are no exception to this rule. The increased turbulence of the environment in which these companies operate forces them to develop new or improved products or processes more effectively and efficiently.
Because of these, the ‘Idea Management Schemes’ or ‘Employee Involvement Initiatives’ have to be highly agile, value-adding and focused on business growth & business sustainability.
From top to bottom-most level, the leadership team should have a thorough understanding of the subjects termed as ‘employee creativity’ and ‘idea management’.
To know more about the subject, please read my book, “Harnessing Employees’ Creativity”, which will be published shortly.
My effort, in this book, has been to present the concept as vividly as possible, so that the mysteries of employee involvement initiatives are deciphered conveniently and all the associated dilemma is cleared.