What do your employees see that never reaches you?

Years ago, I began asking employees where they saw money being lost unnecessarily. In one company, the idea sessions generated more than 100 ideas and identified over $500,000 in potential savings.

These weren't big strategic issues. They were the things people saw in their daily work: scrap, rework, downtime, unnecessary steps, and customer problems everyone had learned to live with.

The employees had already found these problems. We hadn't seen them. As they learned more about how the company made and lost money, they started thinking like owners. And we started listening.

What are your people seeing now? And how would you find out?