Ideas are the engine of progress. Without them, organizations stagnate and decline. Yet most organizations are far more effective at suppressing employee ideas than promoting them. Every day, millions of workers around the world see problems and opportunities their bosses flat-out miss. With little chance to do anything about them, they are forced to watch as their companies waste time and money, disappoint and lose customers, and perform far below their potential.

In today's fiercely competitive business environment, managers can no longer afford to disregard the substantial advantages that employee ideas provide. But many managers either don't appreciate the power of these ideas, or they have never learned how to encourage and deal with them effectively. With know-how, it is relatively simple. The problem is that much of what managers instinctively want to do is highly counter-productive. Dean Schroeder will talk about the discovery of the key principles for getting and managing large numbers of high-quality worker ideas. In his book of the same name, Dean and Alan Robinson provide a roadmap and practical toolkit for totally integrating ideas and idea management into the way managers work and their organizations are structured.

He recently completed his fifth year on the Board of Examiners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, is on the Board of Directors of the American Creativity Association, and has served on several corporate boards.