Informal advice came initially from 3M and Unilever, where managers generously shared their own experiences with us. This helped us realise that we needed to promote company-wide understanding of our technologies and that mapping them would help identify a number of common trends. We ran the launch like a new product marketing programme. The heart of a handsome pack handed to each employee by his or her divisional co-ordinator was a New Business Proposal form. The second section poses a series of questions.
People seem to have been pretty good at filling in the form.
The ideas have been communicated with clarity and enthusiasm. All ideas are logged and posted on the GKN intranet, in order to encourage participation and feedback, and as a measure of success. This incentive should not be underestimated. A personal letter of acknowledgement is immediately sent to the employee by the CEO of his or her company, outlining the timescale for responses and for further contact. GKN is a global industrial company active in the automotive, aerospace and industrial services sectors.