Inviting Employee Ideas is Good For Business and Sense of Purpose

Critical thinking is an essential skill that enables one to analyze and evaluate information, arguments, and ideas systematically and logically. According to Forbes, critical thinking is a “top skill set for leaders.”

Why just leaders? I can think of two reasons,

1) This is a challenging skill to teach, making it almost impossible to improve across an entire enterprise otherwise everyone would be doing it. However, like leadership training, the goal is to impact leadership’s ability to think critically and see a trickle-down effect impacting the organization.

2) It is seen as the leader’s job to contemplate outcomes and the potential resources required to address them. These people need to think critically.

Contemplating a business outcome is not about assessing a right or wrong it is about understanding the desired outcome removing your biases and orientation to an outcome. This takes critical thinking and contemplation. Asking employees to think this way is meaningful not only for better decision-making skills but better engagement too. 

Managers tend to be short on time and maxed on things to do so it is sometimes easier to suggest the right answer and move along to the next task which leaves employees feeling like they just “move widgets”. When we stop asking people to create things/ideas they become stale and isolated and disenfranchised.

Asking employees to contribute at a higher level is good for the company and good for employees.

Without asking employees to contemplate wider views sometimes they can become myopic in their thinking, which can stop their minds from exploring beyond the barriers established by their business unit.  To think about outcomes, one must contemplate problems from another perspective other than their own, which is healthy and builds understanding.

Employees are capable of much more innovations and ideas, but there isn’t a simple means to engage at this level, given the complexity and demands of front-line roles.  This presents an incredible opportunity to tap into these people who deeply understand customers from their own vantage point. Systematically engaging with people to improve processes and customer engagement has to be one of the highest priorities in today’s low-growth economy.

Best Selling Author Stephen Covey once said, “Employees are capable of so much more than their current jobs require and, in many cases, even allow.”

One of our customers Colton Pinchin of Peterbilt said: “If we want to continue to disrupt the industry, we have to use the unique ideas that our people are capable of.”

ThinkSmith is a SaaS-based solution that uses a question-based technology to engage employees with strategy, execution, and outcomes. It aligns teams to specific outcomes, challenging employees to think critically in what is referred to as a “trick-up approach” to strategy.