How can public sector leaders increase productivity in their beleaguered organisations given that most efforts appear to flounder? 

Clue: the answer doesn't reside in bringing in expensive consultants, who, if they're worth their salt, will spend much of their initial work talking to your staff and liberating their ideas, giving rise to the accusation that consultants will borrow your watch and charge for telling you the time. 

The secret lies in asking the people who do the job what they could do differently to improve outcomes. 

But in a non-threatening way. All too often such efforts to engage staff fall on deaf ears; turkeys rarely vote for Christmas. 

Here's a simple idea. Give 15 groups of people 15 minutes to come up with 15 ideas that will result in a 15% increase in productivity. 

(It needn't be productivity – the method can apply to any of the issues that your organisation may face). 

The ‘154' method has the advantage of not having to set aside aeons of time and could easily be slotted in over a coffee break. 

The rules are simple: no idea is stupid (see evaluation below); all voices are equal; making suggestions in areas that in unrelated fields is acceptable; 15 minutes begins and ends with a stopwatch; anything said after that period is ruled out; when the task is finished the results are sent to a separate mailbox. 

The next bit is important. 

It's crucial to separate idea generation from their judgement. In this we are our own worst enemies. In the right frame of mind, it is not difficult to generate new ideas. 

The problem is that we will reject them as quickly as we originate them – we may think they won't work, that others won't like them, that they're embarrassing and so on. Importantly, ideas need time to live and be considered by others who may see applications that we simply can't appreciate. 

So practically, this means that the work of your 154 groups is handed over to a second group to look at how the ideas might be applied in the pursuit of your goal. 

The second part, though, needs to be rigorous. If staff (at all levels) are given the opportunity to originate, they need to be assured that their efforts are not dismissed out of hand. 

This group should keep a ‘live list' of all ideas. They could publish them on an intranet page alongside remarks looking at how they may be being progressed. Ideas shouldn't be dropped on the grounds that they ‘wouldn't work here'. 

They might not now but they may at some point. 

Neither is not-invented here a cardinal sin; ideas begged, stolen or borrowed from elsewhere may be valuable. 

Small groups could look at some ideas in depth to see how they may be applied. 

Involve as many people in the evaluation process as possible. Clearly, you will have to have some expertise in the room but experts could be used in an advisory capacity – how things could be made to work. 

Buy all participants a copy of Edward De Bono's key work, Lateral Thinking. 

This will open minds up to the opportunities that creativity has to offer – and make it easier to be creative. 

Finally, reward success. 

Before you begin, set aside a sum of money that you will invest in the potential for a 15% increase in productivity. 

This will largely depend upon the organisation you run. You would need to have a sense of how much a 15% would save you per year. 

To make that happen, you could allocate 1% of this amount for your reward fund – actual money being handed to real staff. 

Or you could be crude about it and simply set aside 10 consultant days' worth – given that the big five charge in the region of £1,800 per day per consultant (these figures may be out of date) that would give you a starting point of £180,000 (it shocks to see it written down, doesn't it?). 

If you are successful, you will both improve staff morale (who delight in being listened to) and increase productivity, which is a win-win!