Ideas Are Free: How the Idea
Revolution Is Liberating People and Transforming Organizations
By Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder
Berrett-Koehler, April 2004
250 pages, $27.95
One of the most frequently uttered (if not always followed) comments in management
in the past 15 years or so has been “we need to push the authority down the
ranks to the people who actually do the work.” The thinking is sound. The people
closest to the customer should be able to solve the customer’s problem. But
if you simply stop there, argue professors Robinson of the University of Massachusetts
and Schroeder of Valparaiso University, you are missing a huge opportunity.
The people on the front lines have countless ideas about how the corporation
can save time, money and effort. The book is devoted to providing specific ways
senior managers can bring those ideas to the fore.