In a corporate environment, keep a close eye on your Intellectual property

Many of us would love to see our innovative ideas and business process improvements implemented in our work place; any honest and hard working manager would do his best to improve the business he manages. But this enthusiasm not always appreciated by corporate management.

I have faced many incidents where I saw my own ideas and improvements been claimed by the management, I was not giving credits for my own ideas. This may happen to you and it is a certainty in a corporate environment.

What to do? You have one of two options:

1- Keep your ideas to yourself unless you are 100% sure you will be credited for them or;
2- Share your ideas if your goal is to show improvements in your department rather then to be individually credited for them

If you think, sometimes down the road, you will be able to have your own business and use your intellectual property to benefit you, then wait for that moment, it may come faster then you may think.