There are many myths surrounding innovations and ideas for operations improvement in organisations. One of these myths is:
Managers are in the best position to come up with ideas
The reality is, employees are in the best position to come up with ideas for operations improvement because they are the ones actually doing the day-to-day work. They know first-hand what is working and what is not, and they see all kinds of ways in which to improve performance, from simple, common-sense ideas for
- saving time and money,
- improving quality and safety
to entirely new ways of doing operations.
We need to strengthen the workplace with thinking people, and a management that believes that innovations and ideas for improvement can, and should, exist at all levels of the organisation. A good start is to coach first-line managers in creating an environment within which their teams are encouraged and motivated to provide innovations and improvement ideas.
SGAs (Small Group Activities) represent Key 3 of the 20 Keys System, as the approach for problem solving by teams.
Author: Johan Benadie: Director at ODI, and a 20 Keys practitioner for 22 years.
