In Berco, where do the great ideas come from and how do you encourage creative thinking within your organization?

We have the “212 : The Extra Degree” project which came about when a sales rep came forward and told me that she had read a great book, and that we should use it for the Johannesburg sales team. I read it and I said it was so good I think it could do much more for us. At 211 degrees water is very hot, but at 212 it boils. So we encourage everyone to have ideas to get us that extra one degree.

We are very happy for ideas to come from wherever, in order to create an environment that encourages people. I think you need to take people’s ideas and do something with them.

You can have all these policies and rules written down but if you don’t act on people’s ideas they will generally dry up.

There is no formal policy for communicating ideas. People can come in at any time and see me. I see shop stewards, couriers, admin staff, whoever, they’ll come in and ask for a minute of my time.

We don’t always get ideas from everyone, it tends to be 90/10, but at least that when the 10% do have ideas, we have open arms to them. We look to all 850 employees to have one idea, and to help us achieve that 1 extra degree from 211 to 212. That’s why I went to the North Pole, we skied that last 1 degree from 89 to 90 degrees!