Continuing continuous improvement

Why high involvement innovation matters more than ever — and how to make it happen

We’ve always known that employees could be a source of ideas, especially in terms of improving the processes in which they work. Suggestion schemes have been around in some form or other back in the mists of time. Elements of the approach can be found in the medieval guild system where it was used to help develop and improve craft skills and practices. It was an idea which the eighth shogun of Japan, Yoshimuni Tokugawa tried out in 1721 with his ‘Meyasubako’, a box placed at the entrance of the Edo Castle for written suggestions from his subjects. And the British navy pioneered a similar scheme in 1770, asking its sailors and marines for their ideas — significantly reassuring them that such suggestions would not carry the risk of punishment!

The challenge in what we can call 'high involvement innovation' is  not about the what but very much about the how. How to move from the rhetoric, the motherhood statements about every employee being creative and able to contribute to actually making it happen. It’s all very well saying, as one manager memorably told me, that ‘the beauty of it is that with every pair of hands you get a free brain!’ — the big question is how to mobilise this. And how to sustain the initial enthusiasm and momentum for the long haul?

This podcast reflects on what we've learned around this challenge.

You can find a transcript here

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