“My Idea Is This . . .

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1037, 30 July 1930, Page 8

“My Idea Is This . . .

VOGUE OF SUGGESTION-BOX THERE exists in the mental equipment of most people a curious failing'—the fear of ridicule. It is a fault which has repressed many men whose abilities, less that inhibition, would have carried them far in a world which sadly needs ideas. No matter in what business a person may be engaged he is bound to see some way in which a particular activity could be improved, but may hesitate to approach the man behind the door marked “Manager.” In these days of stern competition managers are increasingly looking to the rank and file for suggestions for the better service of the people, which is nakedly called profit.

Until recently suggestion-box ideas have operated more or less perfunctorily wherever they have been established. The fault was inherent in the method. The act of dropping a note bearing a suggested improvement into the maw of a receptacle, which somehow breathed unfriendliness, was a bald and unromantic business. Someone from overseas with a touch of genius has invaded these parts during the last three months and brought along a suggestion —already capitalised and' presumably patented—for a novel suggestion-box. Several large City emporiums and department stores have taken it up enthusiastically and with immediate profit. The scheme is so evolved as to encourage the incubation of ideas among members of the staff, and at the same time spare their feelings, if in the opinion of the management those ideas are impracticable or even stupid. In this latest method an employee, believing that he has thought out that improvement which is going to make all the difference to the profit and loss account of his department and incidentally raise him to the managership of it. takes a "suggestionblank” provided by the firm and on it- pens his idea. This blank is perforated and the piece containing the idea is folded and put in the box for collection by the powers-that-be, and the counterfoil retained. Now this is where the scheme has its great merit. On each portion of the blank are printed corresponding numbers and the identity of the person submitting the idea is preserved. The manager may receive numerous suggestions and looking through them may decide that all except, say one. are of no value. He does not know who has put in the suggestions, no names having been placed on the slips. Those suggestions he thinks impracticable or ridiculous he tosses into the waste-paper basket—with nobody’s feelings hurt. The manager then may

say to himself: “This idea of No. 100’s —seems rather good. Wish I’d thought of it mj’self.” He then pests a notice on the suggestion-box reading in this way: “The management will be pleased to grant an interview to No. 100.” Meantime the marager has got the cigars out and at the appointed time in strolls No. 100—the office boy. The director of an important store employing more than 650 said a day or two ago that there was great enthusiasm among his staff, no fewer than 250 ideas having been submitted since inception of the scheme two months ago. As a result of a thoughtful idea a sales girl had been promoted to the management of a department and numerous others had received monetary or other reward. Some really bright suggestions had come from unexpected quarters. This director had been dubious at first but had now completely abandoned the conservatism which still obtains in some businesses, the reluctance to believe that anybody but tb* manager is capable of a useful idea One point about a scheme of anonymous presentation of suggestions which the director had thought might prove undesirable was that is offered unique opportunity for some disgruntled employee to tell “the boss” just what he thought of him without fear of retribution. In practice, however, this had proved a bogy. “Service” is a word which smites stingiugly on the ears of the “lords of human kind.” but the press of competition from across the Pacific has forced on British people the need for finding new ways of meeting foreign trade invasion and. like it or not, we have had to bend the knee in the wooing of a public which knows what it wants and is never wrong. And the twin brother of “service” is “efficiency.” also very hateful. And the mother of them both is the brand new idea. —C.W.