Driving Innovation

Domain: Execution - Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Innovation is funny in that it's one of those things most companies want more of but they have no idea how to articulate or drive it.

This leads to broad statements like "we need to be more innovative" without any plan, strategy or even vision for how to do that or what it looks like. It puts the idea out there with the hope that someone else will figure it out.

As James Cameron and others have said, "Hope is not a strategy".

So today we're going to provide just a few tips for designing a team and environment that naturally facilitates more innovation.

Cognitive diversity

The broader and more diverse perspectives you have on a team, the more agile and innovative you'll be. A greater number of different perspectives means you'll be able to see and address problems in a new light.

When you are building a team or hiring, consider those applicants who bring different skills and backgrounds. I recommend considering skills that are adjacent to the core function of your team. For instance, if you have a team of seasoned sales rep, look for candidates with skills in marketing or storytelling.

Collaboration

Following the last point, collaboration allows you to take advantage of the cognitive diversity of your team. This isn't just a corporate talking point. Diverse perspectives don't offer much value if you are not taking advantage of them through collaboration. This allows individuals who are different to share ideas and discover new paths.

This means letting your team brainstorm and not stifling creativity by offering your opinion or suggestion too early. If you've gone to all the trouble of bringing a diverse group of experts into the room, let them do their thing.

Experimentation time

A big reason why innovation doesn't "take off" is that leaders don't make the time and space for it. We say we want our teams to be more innovative, but we aren't willing to give our team the time, space and safety to properly explore innovative ideas.

The process for true innovation requires creativity, risk, learning and iteration. This means that mistakes and setbacks are part of the game. It's unreasonable to expect real innovation to happen without also accepting the challenges that come with it.

This is why it's important to give people the time and space to do the type of ideation and experimentation that leads to innovation. A great way to do this is to carve-out a certain number of hours a week that employees can dedicate to experimental learning and special projects.

Celebrate attempts

Not every innovative idea is a good one. One of the things that stifles innovative thinking is the fear of standing-out and looking foolish. This is why innovation requires a strong sense of psychological safety. As a team, you are going to have to get through some bad ideas before you find the good ones.

Celebrating all innovative thinking, even the ideas that won't move forward, is a way of providing positive feedback to encourage more of that behavior. It sends the message that the value is not just the outcome but in the courage to bring fresh and new ideas.

Reframe failure

Another strategy for supporting psychological safety is reframing failures as learning opportunities.

When an innovative idea doesn't work out, the team can find themselves at a crossroads. If the failure is scrutinized and punished, the team receives the message that the risk wasn't worth taking and they learn to play it safe.

If, however, the leader accepts the failure as part of the innovative process and encourages innovation to continue, the team learns that this is one of those rare environments where innovation is truly prioritized. This generates not only more innovation, but higher team engagement as well.

Go outside

Not outdoors, though that's nice too. Find ideas and analogies from a diverse range of industries and disciplines that can be used in your job.

This is cross industry innovation; applying proven solutions to novel concepts.

For instance, the idea for Dyson's bagless vacuum was inspired by an industrial cyclone used in saw mills. Finding inspiration from other applications is a great way to think about problems differently.

An easy way to start here is to identify a major pain-point your team is facing and then researching how other industries have addressed it. This will be an entire topic onto itself but this should be a good starting point.

Thank you for reading. My hope is always that you've found something helpful and easy to implement. If you have feedback, suggestions or questions, please reply to this email.

If you are interested in exploring one-on-one coaching to transform your leadership, email me at [email protected] and we’ll coordinate a free, one-hour discovery session.

This week’s action items:

1. When hiring, look for applicants who also have the adjacent skills that will bolster your team's core function.

2. Take a step-back and let your subject matter experts drive the process for brainstorming and creativity.

3. Encourage your team to spend a certain amount of time each week on special projects and experimental learning.

4. Create an environment of psychological safety by celebrating attempts at innovation, not just successes.

5. Reframe failures as a natural part of the innovation process. Give people the chance to recover and learn from their mistakes.

6. Identify ideas and inspirations to common pain-points from other industries or disciplines.