Corporate - ensure I receive credit for my idea

Question

So, I had this great idea that ensures our company ( a large financial services company) does the right thing, promotes its own product and appears in the market to be ahead of its direct competition. After a few months of work and through multiple governance rounds, it's successfully made its way through the ranks. Some events outside of our control have recently happened making my idea even more valuable and timely and forward-looking.

Now, some MDs are likely going to move in to get credit for my idea, that I worked for and I pitched and was adopted months ago.

How do I ensure people know that it was because of my out-of-the-box thinking, instinct and perseverance we are in this fortunate position? Assume that my boss is more than happy to bury or even worse get credit.

Thanks

Answer 1

Probably not the answer you want, but: you're not going to get the credit you want for this. It sounds like a whole number of people more senior than you are determined to take the credit for it, and at that point there's little you can do. The only way round this is if you've already laid the groundwork and done a bunch of extensive networking in your organisation so you can "go round" the hierarchy.

Longer term, if this sort of thing is important to you, consider working for a company which doesn't behave like this.

Answer 2

You are paid to have ideas and the ideas you have while working on company time are not yours.

Moreover most of the time an idea in itself is quite worthless, what matters is how you convert this idea into a reality and that's what you are remembered and rewarded for.

So I would advice to try to ask for the lead for the realization of your idea (or at least be very implicated), so that even if you do not get rewarded by your current company, that is an experience you can value somewhere else.

Nobody cares that you got "a great idea" during an interview, but if you had a great idea, made it into reality and it had the forecasted impacts on your company, now this is valuable.

Answer 3

You will get all the credit that the inventor of the "egg McMuffin" got. Bupkis

The real value to your idea comes when you go for your next interview and can have a great story to tell. Now, you need to decide whether or not to remain with your present employer. If your boss is willing to stab you in the back to take the credit, he could go to more drastic means such as giving you a bad review, or even putting you on a PIP.

Consider carefully whether you wish to remain with your company, and update your resume/CV, just in case

Answer 4

Make a speach and claim your idea. There are plenty of meetups and all sorts of arranged events. Talk talk talk..... educate others. Tell the story how you came up with this idea. And also you most probably have some company portal like Confluence aor somethig around these lines. Document everything there and every step you did.

Answer 5

It's a bit late, but if you want credit for an idea disclose it only IN WRITING and get written acknowledgement, so there's a paper trail.

Many (most?) companies who hire knowledge workers have a formal invention disclosure process that you can and should use.

Note that if you're on salary in the US as a knowledge worker, your contract probably says that all inventions in the company's fields of interest belongs to the company, since part of what they are paying you for is your creativity. And the company gets to say what is or is not covered by that clause. Elsewhere, or hourly/contractor jobs, may or may not be different; know your contract.

As others have said, though, ideas are a dime a dozen. What makes a disclosure valuable is the kind of information that would go into a patent application: a detailed description of at least some new way the idea might be applied and an explanation of what it's value is. "We should make automatic phone polishers" has little value without an explanation of why people need this and some evidence that it can actually be done (preferably at a reasonable profit). The person who takes it to that level may or may not have started from your idea, depending on how obvious the idea was to a trained practitioner (which is also one of the patentability criteria, for what that's worth.) Not that every idea is worth parenting, or should be patented, but this gives you a framework for thinking about how much of the credit is actually yours... and whether in fact someone else might have legitimately invented it independently and beaten you to "market".