As T&CD makes its way forward, it of vital importance that there is management buy-in to the idea that bottom-up comments are ultimately as valuable as top-down directives. There are several ways to effect this:
· It is widely acknowledged that the Innovation website has led to great improvements company-wide. Such a website where constructive comments and innovations can be gathered and consolidated for action teams will prove to be of great value. It is important that such a site permit anonymous comments. The argument can be made that this will lead to a lot of griping, however, the experience of the Innovation site has been that this is temporary phase and that ultimately the site will gather constructive ideas that lead to significant improvements.
· Surveys frequently serve to confirm the prejudices of the survey makers and are static. Genuine and useful feedback requires something more sophisticated. There are two pieces of software that should require serious evaluation because they concentrate on qualiatative as opposed to quantative research: Atlas TI (http://www.atlasti.com/ ) and Cognitive Edge Sensemaker (http://www.sensemaker-suite.com/ )
· Focus groups should be organized to give feedback at all levels of T&CD regarding how improvements can be made. The results of these focus groups need to be entrusted to a mover and shaker who ensure that ideas are recorded and will follow through with them.
· Recently-retired employees from all business lines can be contacted and interviewed over the telephone to give their feedback regarding the status of employee preparedness for the tasks faced by the company and their suggestions for improvement of training and learning throughout the company.
