Rewarding millions to Quality Circle members?

IN the mid-1980s, I was tasked to promote and implement Quality Circles (QC) as part of our strategies on employee relations. It was a roller-coaster ride for my team as we battled command-and-control managers who were against the idea of empowering the workers. They did not want their workers to perform problem-solving and decision-making which they perceived as a management job.

That was their uneducated guess until they were told that all employee suggestions must be approved by line supervisors and managers prior to their implementation. But that's nothing. Our biggest headache was the union leaders who were silently up in arms for forcing people to do extra work outside of their job description. That was why we had little success from union members who delayed their project implementation using all types of alibis and excuses.