Do you have an idea you are convinced can benefit the company you serve? In this write-up, I argue (based on my achievements as a high performing employee in Guinness Nigeria), that you owe yourself, and the company, a duty to ensure you get heard. As was my experience, you may even have to bypass immediate seniors to get results!
What If No One Seems Ready to Listen to You? (My True Story)
Most successful companies are known for enabling employees at all levels to contribute ideas towards achieving the organizational goals.
As an employee, when you see your ideas get formally adopted, with recognition given to YOU, that’s likely to inspire you to do more. And the company benefits even more!
Sometimes however, decision makers you meet may be so busy that granting you face-to-face audience may prove difficult for them. Or it could be that your immediate seniors you approach with your idea may not see what you see.
I share my true story below, to give you practical insights you can use.
As a young manager in my mid to late twenties in Guinness Nigeria, between 1995 (when I was 25) to 1999, I quickly built a reputation for being innovative. I often saw possibilities others did not.
I started by developing custom automated spreadsheet applications to replace manual data handling and report generation systems in the brewing department. As word spread about how paper work took less time and effort to do, I found myself repeatedly courted (mostly informally), to help other departments put similar tools in place.
Over time, I noticed that despite great improvements in our operational output, one KPI (Key Performance Indicator) generated by my auto-spreadsheet was under-reporting our actual achieved performance. A closer look revealed the formula was faulty.
It was obvious, but I still doubted I was right. Others were at least 5 years older than I was on the job. My boss possessed qualifications I could only dreamed of at the time!
All of this made me feel I had to be wrong.
“How could they all not have seen this computation error?” I wondered.
They Listened, But Really Could Not See What I Was Seeing
I tried bringing it up with a few senior colleagues I came across. They patiently heard me out, but eventually noted that the formula I faulted had been in use for years. And reports had been prepared during that time with no one finding any fault with it.
I knew I could not blame them for failing to see what I was seeing.
They often saw the KPI figures once a week, or four times in a month. In contrast, I’d taken advantage of my spreadsheet application, to trend the reported KPIs backwards for over 12 months, and then plotted charts comparing the trend with other related KPIs.
It was the distinct contradiction I noticed between that particular KPI, and the others on the SAME process, that convinced me something was wrong with its computation.
I studied the structure of the formula, and tried modifications, until I got one that worked right. Plotting the modified KPI, the positive correlation was instantly obvious.
And that basically cemented my conviction. I knew we needed to change the formula!
Getting No Support from My Immediate Seniors, I Chose to Go Higher
If you have nagging conviction that won’t go away, you owe others a duty to act on it.
When I saw that bringing up the issue with others only earned non-committal responses, I decided to write a formal paper on it, and send to top management.
Initially, I felt addressing it to my boss would be adequate. But it occurred to me that he was likely to ask the opinion of my senior colleagues. I already knew that would do little good.
Being keen to get a change, I addressed my paper to the Brewery Manager (BM), copying my boss. In it, I briefly highlighted the KPI formula error, and proposed the modified version I’d derived, for use,
Within 24 Hours I Got a Response – and a Solution!
24 hours after I dropped off my one page paper, I got called in by my boss.
Looking sternly at me he asked “Why did you send this directly to the BM, without first checking with me?”. In his hand was the copy from the BM, on which the latter had scribbled a note to my boss: “Discuss this with Tayo, and let me know.”
I immediately apologized for not coming first to him, and explained my reasons. He nodded, then asked me how I arrived at my deductions. In the end, he instructed me to modify the formula in the spreadsheet as I’d proposed, and to inform others.
That was a great confidence booster.
Some months later, I derived a completely new weighted average KPI to complement existing ones.
This time around, I addressed my paper to my boss, who took it to the expatriate brewery head. The latter sent it to the headquarters with his full endorsement.
This second initiative got me even more recognition than the first.
Less than a year later, I got nominated for the first of many secondments to higher positions. I had no doubts that my “contributions” influenced those nominations.
You can also achieve similar results using the above ideas.