The Ideas of Others

I have a friend who is a jewelry designer. Her job is to study fashion trends and design product to meet those trends. She has many years experience as a designer, yet she knows that each design is a guess, and most initial designs will be abandoned as the market chooses the right guesses.

She also told me that she doesn't try to make all the guesses herself. Experience has taught that her employees have guesses too. And many of their guesses were designs that she initially believed wouldn't sell. But it turns out that the scorecard for her employees is similar to her own. Most employee design ideas (like her own design ideas) will be abandoned, but others will find market acceptance.

Any designer knows what she is talking about. It can take literally hundreds of ideas to yield just a handful of winners. The more ideas initiated and explored, the more winners to be had. Good designers listen to other people's ideas and suggestions, and incorporate them whenever they can. Just as we should do as managers. Often times, the people who work for us have good ideas; ideas that can be useful to us if we'll take the time to listen to them, explore them, and think about how we can use them.

Think about it this way: In a group of people such as department or work group, no one person in that group is smarter than all of the people in that group put together; because each person in the group has their own individual skills, talents, experiences, perspectives and points-of-view."

About me: Dan Pelley teaches a number of problem solving and continuous improvement techniques in his Proactive Leadership program. The program is offered on an open enrollment basis in Lincoln, RI and Danielson. CT. Click here to visit our website to learn more about this and other programs.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
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