I walked into the office of a friend of mine and right on the left hand side, right inside the door to her staffs’ offices is a suggestion box and on this box she has a small sign:

“All complaints are welcome as long as you offer a suggestion for a solution. Otherwise the complaint is just another complaint.”

I asked her about her blue suggestion box with the light bulb picture on it as I sat down with her.

This suggestion box idea came from one of her employees who at one time had a great idea but was not able to catch up with her and this staffer was not very comfortable using email. Now once a month all the complaints that also have a suggestion of a fix with them are going into a drawing for different items.  Many times she has gift cards she personally purchased for either gas, a nice restaurant, different stores or just a plain AMEX card so they can use them how they think fit.

She has received some great improvement ideas from her staff that she implemented.

She also told me when an improvement idea that was implemented came from someone in the staff she made sure this staff person received credit for the improvement. She also is now receiving ideas and suggestions of improvements from her outside vendors and many clients as well but she does not include them in the internal draw for the gift cards.

“I have so much chaos in my life, it’s become normal. You become used to it. You have to just relax, calm down, take a deep breath and try to see how you can make things work rather than complain about how they’re wrong.” –  Tom Welling –