$1000 to Every Employee to Execute on their Idea: Wow!

Hats off to Adobe for a very innovative campaign to engage their employees in the creation and execution of ideas. The new and very novel KickStart campaign by Adobe has been developed with the explicit goal of motivating employees not only to come up with the ideas, but to provide them $1000 in cash to implement a MVP – a minimal viable product – for their idea – to take the idea to the next level.

And it looks like lots of fun! Employees are given a red box – in the box is a pre-paid credit card to the value of $1000, and an innovation guide that walks the team member through a six step recess from idea to execution. And, if they get to a certain level of trial with their idea – they get to open a blue box!

I find this concept fascinating for a number of reasons. First, the 2006 study by IBM of CEOs, quizzing them as to where the best ideas come from, showed that they come from employees, partners and customers. So Adobe is actively looking to engage employees to come up with ideas. We get that. However, they are going one step further by actually giving them the cash up front to implement their idea, rather than asking them to pitch for funds. Not only does this encourage the team member to ideate, it also actively pushes them to get going and implement a MVP that demonstrates a) their idea and b) how resourceful they are in utilising the funds.

At The Strategy Group we are very excited about this concept. If you would like to talk to us about implementing a similar program in your organisation, just call.

The following video explains the program in more detail.