For an idea to be useful it need not be invented in your head. Indeed, in his book ‘Working Knowledge’, Thomas Davenport tells of an organisation with an unusual award. It is called the Not Invented Here But I Did It anyway Award. Every year staff are given special recognition for finding ideas or practices with potential for all kinds of benefit to the business and how it benefits customers and the bottom line.

The award indicates an attitude which values ideas for their                                                        usefulness as opposed to being preoccupied with their source.

This would seem to chime with Everret Rogers’ definition of innovation: ‘…an idea or process which has not been done here before’.

By being a leader comfortable with stealing I mean having the humility to welcome all manner of suggestions so long as will move your team or business’ agenda forward. This can be difficult as some managers are only comfortable with new ideas if they originate from their own heads. Everyone on the organisation and every experience is a rich source of ideas waiting to be tapped into.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Book reviews, Ideas to Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.