Get ideas wherever you are

I read an interesting post over at Mission Minded Management today. In it, she talks about building innovation into every level of an organization.

I like the idea of this for a few reasons.

It encourages collaboration
If everyone in the organization is expected to have more ideas, more of them will be shared and built upon.

It reduces idea killing
When everyone is held accountable for having ideas, people will have more - without fear of failure. It helps keep people from killing their own ideas. This creates an environment where it's ok to have ideas. Thus, the likelihood that people will be killing everyone else's ideas is reduced, because they don't want it to happen to them.

It empowers everyone in the organization with ideas
If you feel like you should be having ideas, and that those ideas are listened to, you are more likely to feel like your job matters and that you are in control. This means that even those people at the front line of an organization feel like they are making a contribution.

My favorite lesson from this is the reminder that everyone can get more ideas, no matter where you are in an organization.