Employees Hold the Key to Innovation

Here is a tidbit from two management experts writing in yesterday's Wall Street Journal - Employees Hold the Key to Innovation:

Most great ideas for enhancing corporate growth and profits aren't discovered in the lab late at night, or in the isolation of the executive suite. They come from the people who daily fight the company's battles, who serve the customers, explore new markets and fend off the competition.

So why is our "innovation" policy still focused on the folks in the labs -- ie R&D money and talent in; innovation (read: patents since we in the US don't have any other way of measuring innovation) out?