A worker in one of Europe's largest wireless communication companies showed his manager how to repair an error that was costing the company $30 million per year. A secretary at Grapevine Canyon Ranch proposed a simple change to pull the company's website to the top of search engines. These are just two of many examples in Ideas are Free that highlight the single best resource in a company - those frontline employees who can see those telling little details that escape managers. Based on extensive research with hundreds of companies around the world and in every major field, this practical book shows how to draw the most useful ideas from frontline employees and, in the process, significantly improve the atmosphere - and success quotient - of any organization. Ideas are Free is the definitive book on getting - and applying - business-transforming ideas from frontline employees.

Very little has been published on how organizations can set about getting large numbers of ideas from their front-line employees. Ideas Are Free was written to fill this void. The concepts and advice in it are based on our own firsthand research in hundreds of organizations around the world, and we have tested and refined them in well over a hundred more. These range in size from small family businesses to large multinational organizations. They operate in many different cultures and countries, and represent diverse sectors of the economy, including financial services, retailing, health care, manufacturing, hospitality, agriculture, publishing, high-technology, transportation and logistics, telecommunications, not-for-profit and government. While we have studied or worked with organizations that were already leading the world in managing employee ideas, we have also conducted research in, and helped many more whose initiatives had not been so successful. Being able to contrast the excellent performers with the mediocre and poor, across such a diverse set of businesses and situations, has allowed us to develop a good understanding of the principles involved in managing ideas.