What's The Big Idea?
I once killed a man. True story. I was young and stupid, straight out of school and working in the wages office of a colliery. You may remember collieries? Big scary places full of coal. I was working at on the outskirts of Glasgow and I never had to get my hands dirty. My job was to count the number of miners on each shift, record their details in a big ledger and hand out their pay packets once a week. The miners would come up to a little window, give me their name and payroll number and I would hand over the money. I remember being astonished that so many of them seemed to wear eye-liner until it dawned on me that this was the coal-dust that hadn't been washed off in the showers. Told you I was stupid.
So stupid, in fact, that I once opened the wrong ledger and transferred one man's details into the Terminations book. This was the book where you recorded the details of anyone who had died. It set in train a process which resulted in the man's wife getting a letter of regret from the Coal Board. Well, you can imagine the shock and the subsequent apologies!
I wasn't a complete idiot, however, because after a few weeks in the job I noticed a fundamental flaw in the our paperwork system. There were about twenty different forms required for different actions and, for some reason, we were always running out of one or the other. This meant, for instance, that overtime payments were delayed or holiday requests were denied. One night, at home, I devised a simple inventory system so that we would always re-order the necessary forms at least a week before we ran short. I came in to the office the next day feeling very pleased with myself and shared my idea with the office manager and the rest of the staff.
To my astonishment, no one wanted to know. The existing system had been in place for many years and, whatever the flaw, people didn't want it to change, or at least not because some sixteen year old upstart had an idea.
I remembered this story today during a meeting of department heads as we discussed the culture of creativity within the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. My view is that just about everyone is capable of coming up with bright ideas, but they can quickly become frustrated if no one encourages them to do it again and again. It takes a certain strength of character to stay motivated in the face of rejection.
A theory confirmed late this afternoon when a man walked into my office with a brilliant idea as to how radio programmes on our Listen Again site could best be illustrated with text and images. Obviously I can't tell you more than that, because it's his idea. What struck me was that this man - who works in the Health Service - has been trying to tell people about this idea for - wait for it - TEN YEARS. But no one would listen, until now.
Perhaps, finally, this is an idea whose time has come. At least I wont be the one to kill it.
