Who carries the idea once it has been heard
I gave regional directors the lead on ideas they had brought in from customers. It was the right intent, and a few months later both they and head office told me they could not carry it.
We all want to innovate by listening to customers, and we rarely ask who carries the idea once it has been heard.
I found that out a couple of years ago, when I gave my regional directors the lead on their own ideas. A few months later, they told me it was too much.
Where the ideas were
Whenever I visited the regions and sat with field teams, good ideas came up in almost every conversation. Some of them were very good. These were the people closest to customers, and they could see things head office could not.
I always felt the hard part was getting that thinking into head office without it getting lost on the way.
The forum
So we set up a forum. Every Monday, 9am. Field teams brought what they had, we put everything on the table, and then filtered it against one test. Does this solve a real business problem, or support where we are heading? From the first list, nine ideas became three.
Then came the decision I still believe was right in intent. The regional directors who came up with each idea would lead it. Head office would support them, with a support team and a pilot budget approved in the room, based on what each pilot needed. Ownership with the people who had the idea, and some urgency and accountability attached.
It worked, for a while.
When the stakes went up
Then the pilots went up to the top table, and the stakes went up with them. Two things happened at once.
Head office was supporting, but not adding enough real value. And the regional directors, who still had their own regions to run, were now also running a structured programme, with updates, reviews and accountability on top.
Owning an idea and carrying the full load of delivering it turned out to be two separate things, and the design handed people both.
Towards the end of that year, in one of those Monday meetings, both sides said the same thing. We cannot handle this.
It took a few weeks and some uncomfortable conversations to work out why. That part is its own story.
What we changed
What we changed was simple.
Much harder prioritisation, so new initiatives could not just appear.
New ideas led by specialists, with the field teams as mentors and sounding boards. That kept the customer voice in the room without asking the field to carry the delivery on top of running their regions.
And recognition, which I came back to a few days later.
The line I am still looking for
I am still not sure where the line sits between owning an idea and carrying it.
How much of an idea should the person who had it actually own?