Unfortunately, most suggestion systems don´t work very well. That box on the wall with a suggestion sign above it often has more dust on it than suggestions in it. The reason: employees tend to be more concerned about retributions than contributions.

To bypass this inherent roadblock, require workers to come up with at least two suggestions per month as part of their job description. Make suggestions mandatory - not optional. Begin by having employees offer suggestions that will improve the way they do their jobs. As they become more comfortable with the system, they can start focusing on other areas.

Once you have employees making suggestions, concentrate on their efforts, not the results they produce. As soon as people realize that it´s "safe" to offer suggestions, the quality of their input should improve with time.

Business owner Marty Edelstein took the advice of management guru Peter Drucker and introduced a suggestion system that made an incredible difference for his company. He wrote the book I Power to describe and share its benefits.

Edelstein held fun and enlightening "I Power sessions" that offered employees $1 for any suggestion and $2 for good ones. For more information on I Power, and inexpensive tools for adapting the system to your business, visit http://www.i-power.com/.

Never underestimate the power of an effective suggestion system. Today´s organization must be proactive to survive, let alone thrive. Management doesn´t have a monopoly on insight. For example, when a new worker in a factory saw a work area for robots lit up, he asked why the machines needed light to operate.

The answer was that they didn´t - and his suggestion saved the company thousand of dollars. There´s no way to know the source of your most successful suggestions.