A high level of employee involvement is vital to the success of any project, says Robert Pater, founder of Strategic Safety Associates. "Managers attempt all kinds of tricks and games to activate participation, but for many, involvement is the Holy Grail of organizational leadership," he says. "Tremendous turnarounds always seem to be ignited by a high level of participation and involvement."
One way to get a high level of employee involvement is to encourage creativity and idea generation, says Pater. Creativity is a numbers game. The more ideas proposed, the more likely some genuinely useful ones will come out. Silly ideas or incomplete suggestions are often developed into highly useful proposals.