Getting others to accept your ideas and accepting their ideas is one of the hardest challenges in being successful in business and indeed in any aspect of life.
With this in mind, meet John Timpson the founder and owner of Timpson, the shoe-repair to key-cutting chain based in the United Kingdom.
In an article he submitted to the BBC News online edition he stated, "the challenge all businesses come up against is this: How can the firm's ideas culture best be boosted."
"Nine in ten of our employees are not original thinkers," he writes, "But unfortunately some of them think they are, especially if they have been promoted to middle management. Some managers mistakenly think that seniority brings with it the ability to be creative and the right to promote their own ideas in preference to any others. As a result they suppress bright wheezes proposed by junior members of their team...
"Recognise these characters and take no notice of their advice," he suggests. "Some of them will give you all the reasons why it can't be done, while others will pretend he is in favour but do absolutely nothing."
"Timpson says senior managers have to cut through the middle management and make contact with those lower down the chain who because they are often closer to the customer have a good feel for what the market wants. Any business owner will say that the most enlightening moments are when they talk directly to the consumer and get an honest assessment. They will also say they do not necessarily want to hear what is right or how great their product or service is but rather what should be fixed. Obviously that can't happen all the time so instead Timpson recommends that "top managers have to free up the organisation by giving everyone the authority to speak their mind. Everyone should have the authority to help improve the business, even if it means going over the head of their boss."
He gave the example of a new business venture which had first been rejected: "We first thought of adding watch repairs to our shoe repair, key cutting and engraving services in 1990. We planned to install the new service in our Tonbridge branch, but one thing was missing - we couldn't find a watch repairer. After spending £1,000 on advertising, we only received one response from an applicant who failed to show up for his interview. So we gave up and watch repairing was ignored at Timpson until 1995 when we acquired a competitor called Automagic. I was visiting one of these new branches in West Bromwich when I met Glenn Edwards for the first time. Mr Edwards couldn't stop talking about watch repairs.
"I have the experience," he said. "I used to work in a department store, a proper watch repair service in this shop would make a fortune."
"I was reminded of that conversation a few days later in Stevenage when I was looking at another of the Automagic shops we had just bought.
"A sub-tenant occupied the branch next door. He was a watch repairer, obviously doing good business. I took him out for coffee and he agreed to help us with some initial training.
"Ten weeks later we started our watch repair service in Yeovil, Crawley and Chelmsford. With an average turnover of £50 per week it was hardly an overnight success, but at least there were some encouraging signs. A conversation I had during a visit to our shop in Stretford led to the idea of putting the watch repair booth in the shop window.
"At Eastbourne, this new layout brought an immediate increase in sales to £1,000 a week.
"We now knew we had a serious business. Since then we have spent over £2m on training and created a service which is already worth £10m a year, all started by a chance conversation during a shop visit.
"Mr Edwards who suggested the idea was quickly moved from West Bromwich to help develop the scheme and is now the national technical manager for our watch repair business."
That is a Eureka moment for any businessman and came from Timpson's willingness to have an open mind to ideas and implementing them with some adjustments. He concludes the article with, naturally, some ideas. "The first rule if you want to encourage more of an ideas culture is to walk around the workplace. That is where you will find the inspiration...Keep talking to people everyday and in every part of the business. You need to give people the authority to innovate, and you must not have any rules that stand in the way of progress. We call it upside-down-management. It is an easy phrase to say, but it can take years to achieve."
What Timpson is recommending is a not a breath of fresh air but a hurricane that has the potential to transform any business. As companies prepare to turn over a new leaf for 2005, it is worth pondering how many ideas your employees have waiting to be tapped.