Because they're doing the day-to-day work, front-line employees see many problems and opportunities their managers don't. But most organizations fail to realize this potentially extraordinary source of revenue-enhancing ideas. The authors of "Ideas Are Free use real-world examples from their work with hundreds of organizations to show how to exploit the virtually free, perpetually renewable resource of employee ideas. The book explains how sustainable competitive advantages in areas ranging from productivity and responsiveness to cost reduction and quality assurance are only possible with the attention to detail that comes from getting and implementing large numbers of ideas from employees. Subjects include how to make ideas part of everyone's job, how to set up and run an effective process for handling ideas, how to help people come up with more and better ideas, and how a strong flow of ideas can have a profound impact on an organization's culture.

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This principle can improve every aspect of a business, as Robinson and Schroeder demonstrate.

In an empowered organization, employee ideas--especially those from front-line workers--are a currency with the capability to slash costs, boost morale and productivity, and in some cases yield enormous actual-dollar profitability.

But too many organizations go about idea collection all wrong. Either they have no systematized method of collecting, analyzing, and acting on ideas--rapidly implementing the good ones--or they saddle their idea system with an unworkable and counterproductive monetary reward system that results in the opposite of what's intended.

Still, companies that encourage--even demand--ideas from their employees reap many benefits. Interestingly, most of the big improvements come from very small ideas--that piggyback and replicate into a powerful snowball of change For instance, one idea from one employee might save a few thousand dollars a year in a single location, but multiply by 10,000 locations and the savings are enormous. Too, the little incremental changes are often site-specific and harder for competitors to spot, leading to long-term competitive advantage.

From massive corporations like Toyota to single-locations such as a guest ranch in Arizona, companies with good idea capture systems enjoy higher morale, higher productivity, lower costs--and a fresh climate where going to work is actually fun.

And after reading this book, any company ought to be able to put such a system into place.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Free ideas provide huge benefitsJul 31, 2004
By M. L Lamendola
How did Toyota rise from being an obscure automaker to being "Number Three" in "The Big Three?" How did Toyota come to dominate the J.D. Powers Consumer Satisfaction Survey? And why is it Toyota has not laid off a single worker since 1950? Ideas. Toyota uses hundreds more ideas per worker than do its American counterparts.

While Toyota is a stunning example of how one company gets and uses employee ideas, this book isn't about Toyota. It's about liberating people and transforming organizations through ideas. Not necessarily big ideas, but ideas that come from every person in the organization and add up to big things.

The typical organization is an idea desert. This well-researched book shows you, through case histories and clear explanations, how any organization can transform that desert into a lush land that produces bumper crops.

One key is tapping into the vast resource of employees who are closest to the work. Managers have a perspective that is excellent for addressing the larger picture. But to have that perspective, managers are necessarily removed from being close to the work. Thus, they simply are not in a position to see how to improve the work.

Another important concept that many managers fail to put to use is that of massively parallel eyes, ears, and brains. Joseph Antonini taught us that ignoring these inputs is very dangerous--he nearly ruined K-Mart by assuming his ideas were the only ones that really mattered.

We have to remember that employees are often leaders and thinkers outside of work. They rear children, hold leadership positions in their churches, hold leadership positions in their trade or professional organizations, conduct neighborhood watches, pay mortgages, coach softball teams, teach children how to ride bikes, care for their aged parents, plan vacation trips, plan and prepare meals for guests, conduct hundreds of financial transactions each year, safely navigate their way around strange neighborhoods or even cities they have never been to before, conduct research at their library and online, send their spouses or children off to war and support them across vast oceans, and.... You get the point. And this is a point that Ideas Are Free brings to front and center.

Companies who treat employees as a brain trust have an enormous advantage over companies that treat employees as a cost they'd like to eliminate. This book shows you how to treat employees as a brain trust, based on what other companies have successfully done. It also alerts you to some pitfalls and explains why certain approaches don't work.

The competitive advantage that will most determine the future of any company is brainpower. It's not a matter of hiring bright people. It's a matter of correctly managing the brainpower you already have. And that's why I recommend Ideas Are Free to anyone who is in a management position.

In today's globally competitive environment, you can't afford to operate on the same premise Antonini did.

You need ideas. And, they are free--if you know how to look for them.

3 of 4 found the following review helpful:

weLEAD Book Review from the Editor of leadingtoday.orgDec 22, 2004
By Greg L. Thomas
This is a book about transformation and the leadership it takes to achieve it. The obvious premise of this book is that "ideas" can transform an average company into a great one, or a struggling organization into a competitive success. The power to achieve this is in simple everyday ideas from the people who really know where the problems exist, the front line workers. Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder have written a book that has its origins in the 1980's. Schroeder had discovered that the "employees of distressed companies could often identify and solve critical problems which management had either missed or ignored". Around the same time, Robinson was studying Japanese organizations and discovering how small ideas could lead to high employee involvement and superior performance. This book is a result of their research that led them into 150 different organizations in seventeen countries representing a diverse variety of industries.



Ideas Are Free is a book that discusses how everyday common-sense ideas can make a powerful difference in any organization! Most American organizational cultures constantly search for the "big" revolutionary ideas that often are quickly duplicated by the competition. But it is the ongoing benefits derived from smaller innovations that can really make a huge difference. These small ideas tend to remain proprietary within the organization that utilizes them. Sadly, most organizations seem to ignore this opportunity and are better at suppressing ideas instead of promoting them!



Ideas Are Free correctly focuses on the fact that the best ideas come from people who do the work and see many things the manager doesn't. Managers are good at squandering the most significant resource that organizations possess: employee ideas. Aside from innovation, another advantage of utilizing the ideas of employees is that the process pushes the decision-making authority back down to the people who do the work where it belongs. A secondary benefit is that managers are reminded every day of how valuable and productive ideas from the "front-line" can be. This should remind the manager to be less arrogant and more humble.



This book is organized into eight chapters. Chapter 1 convinces the reader that small ideas can drive a culture of high performance. It also provides an overview of the books main points. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the importance of going after small ideas, and examines why most common reward systems fail. Chapter 5 discusses how to create an effective process to deal with many new ideas, and how to make idea generation a part of everyone's job. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on helping employees engender more and better ideas, and how to make a good idea system a truly great one. Chapter 8 shows how a sound ideas system can make a positive change in the organization's culture. Most chapters end with suggested actions that any manager can adopt to promote ideas called "Guerrilla Tactics".



Ideas Are Free is excellent reading and one that can inspire a manager to tap into any organization's greatest untapped natural resource... it's people!



3 of 4 found the following review helpful:

Insightful!May 19, 2004
By Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract"
Authors Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder articulate a plain, obvious truth that hierarchical executives and managers may sometimes ignore: often the best ideas come not from the top, but from the little guy working in the cubicle or out on the assembly line. Their book predicts an 'idea revolution,' where companies realize that their employees' ideas are among their companies' most valuable resources. The book reviews the basics of how to set up an idea-generating system, how to reward employees effectively and how to keep managerial egos out of the way. The authors discuss several case studies that demonstrate the power of a good idea. A new idea? No. One is reminded of Andre Gide, who said, "Everything has already been said, but because nobody was listening, we keep having to start all over again at the beginning." We recommend this book to any manager, executive or business owner who seeks powerful organizational improvements based on individual insight, creativity and innovation. Go ask a customer service clerk how to make things better.

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