(In fact, we have, to a certain extent, institutionalized this effort. In every job description – or at least all the ones I’ve seen – a portion of the job is dedicated to “duties as apparent or assigned.” In large part, this is taken to mean: if you see something that needs to get done, then by all means do it!)

Sometimes the result is small scale – as in, a few employees at one store – and sometimes, it’s a nationwide effort that leverages talent throughout the company. IAmBestBuy and Project Holiday are great examples that showcase these small and large efforts.

Either way, the dilemma is that we don’t have a good way to share all the great stuff that’s happening. Amazing work yields equally amazing results, but most of us – and certainly most of the people that shop with us – just don’t know about it.

This issue has been here for years, and we’ve tried to tackle it in many ways, from huge “Knowledge Management Infrastructure” work to grassroots attempts to just encourage people to tell their stories.

But the issue remains. Incredible stuff is happening all over the place, but it happens in little pockets and never gets to the scale, or the benefits, that should come with being a $40B company. And with over 1000 stores and 150,000 people, it is no wonder that this issue exists.

I really wish I had an answer, one simple solution that would fix this problem. A common idea I’ve heard is to “do less” — that if we have fewer projects going on, then we could all just focus on them and really drive them to success.

This, however, is counter to the very nature of the culture that brought us to this place. If we do less, then someone’s idea isn’t heard. Someone somewhere is told to be quiet and just get with the pre-ordained, fully funded, executive-approved program.

Not only does this sound like a miserable culture, it would just never work at Best Buy. Each of us has a story to tell about something we made happen at work, not because the company told us to, or because it was part of our job description, but because we really cared. And I believe that none of us would give that up, for ourselves or for anyone else. In short, we just value people too much.

That – obviously – is a good thing.

And so, we are left with the dilemma: with all these people doing all this great stuff, how does everyone else find out about it? How do we get the most out of the hard work that each of these people puts forth?

While I don’t have a magic bullet, I would submit that the answer has something to do with social technologies. With sharing. With openness. With networks. With relationships. And yes, with people.

Because the only way we are going to overcome this challenge is through the amazing efforts of the people that created it.

This is a great vision. The idea that our company is built on the strength of its people, and that we can grow stronger by relying even more on our people is, I believe, a differentiator and has the capacity to carry us far into the future. The principles of mass collaboration and open innovation are the waves that are transforming our society right now; building our company upon them ensures us a solid future.

This approach is driving some great behaviors throughout the organization. I see more openness, humility, teamwork and respect than ever before. Corporate leadership is getting to know our field employees. Complaints from retail staff about out-of-touch management are becoming more rare. People are connecting names to faces. And some great ideas are seeing the light of day.

It’s all making a difference. People are thinking differently, behaving differently, and pushing themselves to the boundaries of what open architectiture could mean. 

At the same time, I think we walk a fine line in this space. Not only do we need each employee to bring their best ideas to the table, but we need to listen carefully to the needs and work together to act upon them. The scary part is, the former is happening faster than the latter.

In recent weeks, I have been in countless rooms of retail teams who are diligently working to drive local growth. They discuss that “the answer is in the room.” They act as small business owners. They brainstorm. They prioritize. They decide. They test. They measure. They are, indeed, empowered. And, they are scared.

The fear sits behind their eyes, and hovers like a cloud above the tables. No one wants to talk about it. People finally have the power to make change, so how can they admit apprehension now?

This fear exists because the teams don’t have all they need. There is not a menu of options from which to choose to drive their businesses. There is no suite of tools to help them succeed. In general, there are just not a lot of resources to help them along the way.

We are making strides in providing more of these resources – local marketing is a great example - but we are not moving fast enough. So, right now the collaborative model is limited — by who you know, what you know, and when you have time to get it done. Not to mention your budget (or lack thereof).  And yet, the business needs move on, at lightning speed, in an economic environment that brings more pressure each day.

Meanwhile, the need to listen, to support, to collaborate, remains. We listen in pockets, when we have time. But we have not reframed our priorities to focus on the needs.

To a certain extent, we are sitting back and waiting for “the crowd” to come up with the answer. We need the entire organization to jump in with both feet to make it happen.