How can employers get their staff to think more creatively, to challenge the status quo, all the while keeping the daily operations of the company running smoothly and without a hitch? Innovation is not like any other business function. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to the issue. It is better described as a unique feat of the imagination that cannot be predicted nor replicated.

For all the apparent uniqueness that comes with it, innovation seems to be something that happens on a regular basis with some organizations. So, how do they do it? What can you, as a manager do to inspire a sense of innovation within your own company? Well, as it turns out, there is more than one thing that you can do and here are several of them.

Make Innovation Part of Your Business

Not making a big fuss about innovation may be the best way to reach it. By thinking about it as something exotic, or something that’s not part of everyday business, you isolate it from what’s normal within your company. In other words, innovation needs to be like any other process in the organization, if it will ever hope to be successful. So, for change to be a reliable process, it needs to be addressed systematically, like any other business issue in which you discover a problem and then aim to solve it.

Don’t Be Afraid of Failure

Accepting failure as a regular part of innovation is the only sensible way going forward. You have to look at change at what it is, namely pioneering, and there can’t be any success if there aren’t any missteps here and there. In fact, each failure can be seen as an excellent opportunity to learn and improve your processes because, in the end, you have some additional information that most others don’t – how not to do things. 

Hire Outsiders

Employing people with diverse skills, backgrounds, and talents will help you challenge the status quo when developing new products or business strategies. Not everybody looks at things the same as you do and you never know where a good idea might pop out. You need Inusual people…

Avoid Negativity

Voices that challenge it will always accompany innovation –  be it from the industry, from your competitors, analysts, the media, or even from within your own company. When a business becomes discouraged about facing the challenges and loses its conviction to move forward, there will not be much innovation taking place.

Asking the What Ifs

Though this question may seem like a simple one, it, nevertheless, has the power to change how you look at things. By making use of the ‘what if’ way of thinking, you will be able to maximize the present while, at the same time, secure the future. The best leaders know how to attain their desired outcomes while remaining discovery driven and oriented. There is no point in overcoming short-term hurdles at the expense of long-term sustainability. And the best way to achieve both is to ask the what if questions continuously.

Conclusion

The path toward innovation is not as complicated as some people may believe. By nurturing it and inspiring it in your organization, you are sure to expect only great ROI over the mid and long-term. 

Question to reflect

Are your organization inspiring innovation?

]]>