Drawing knowledge out of people

There have been various approaches to get knowledge out of people like- thinking out of the box, lateral thinking, analytical thinking, and strategic thinking. Toyota pioneered the concept of an idea box on every shop floor, executive office, sales office, and regional office. They wanted to get suggestions from every person in the company and make them feel recognized. Ideas started pouring in and quality ideas are taken. Toyota implements 95% of these ideas! This demonstrates how valuable the employee suggestions are and how it is feasible to draw that knowledge out of them. The key in my opinion is to have mechanism for active listening to what the employees have to say.