Ideas have value…even the crappy ones. Why? Because if you manage the crappy ideas as you would the great ones, initiators will strive to become better at spotting opportunities that will deliver, while moving themselves further up the reward and recognition chain. 

You MUST reward and recognise in a consistent fashion; if you slip or get lazy, that initiator won’t come back and you’ve lost (at least) one unit of improvement potential (andw he/she will relay that poor experience to colleagues).
  
In my previous posts I have mentioned the importance of managing the needs and expectations of idea initiators to facilitate the ‘issues into opportunities’ culture shift that is required to successfuly underpin the CI and innovation framework.
 
 Maslows Hierarchy of needs speaks to this directly. We all want to be recognised and appreciated for our efforts and if you don’t give this the priority it deserves in your innovation management system, you will not build the levels of engagement required to enable the evolution of innovation and CI through your business.
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Recognition can be as simple as a ‘thank you for being a part of our creative community’.

Whenever adding a new function into our tools, we always asked ourselves this question before locking it down: ‘what does this mean to the initiator?’
  
In VOB (Voice Of the Business), idea initiators are your customers; sensitive to and influenced by your actions after they have submitted an idea.
  
I have an expectation that businesses understand the need and commitment required for reward and recognition before they commit to idea capture and innovation management.
Here are the milestones for reward and recognition as we see them:
  • Idea submission
  • Involvement in idea community
  • Idea proceeds to Senior management review
  • Idea proceeds to initiative
  • Idea is implemented

This is a super-simple snapshot of the R&R process. There of course needs to be some set parameters, including some built in flexibility to enable a degree of reward that is commensurate to scale or value of improvement delivered.