Companies intending to stay innovative and competitive must work actively at creating an innovative culture for their employees. This involves much more than forming a mission statement and inventing a set of rules to follow.
Innovation is a process predicated on action and it is up to the business leaders of an organization to put the plans in place to achieve an innovative work environment and act on these plans in order to achieve success. The following is an overview of specific actions which can be taken to help create and maintain a culture for innovation in the workplace.
The notion that R&D departments are almost solely responsible for innovation within a company is antiquated at best. Research in innovation management has consistently shown that employees, regardless of their department affiliation, are some of the best sources for innovation. Innovative companies know this, and enable all their employees to innovate.
Involving an entire organization in the innovative process can be facilitated by business and innovation leaders in any number of different ways. Providing open discussion sessions throughout the company during designated time periods is an excellent way to get all employees involved.
Each employee should be encouraged to put forward their thoughts and ideas, whether they pertain to new product concepts or ways to improve business flow and functionality. Remember, innovating business processes can often be just as fruitful as creating a new product. Another simple solution to employee involvement is a "suggestion box", which would most easily manifest itself as an email account which individuals would be able to send their ideas, thoughts and proposals to.
From the perspective of an innovation or business leader, it would be important to emphasize to employees that their ideas are not being judged. Never has there been a time when the cliche "no idea is a bad idea" ever been more true. Judging and negativity will only inhibit employees from participating.
It is crucial that business leaders work to maintain an open, non-judgemental approach to the concept of gathering ideas as this is key to the overall innovative culture.
Research has shown that structured, scheduled meetings rarely result in innovation. On the contrary, open discussion sessions and informal communication are much more successful at fostering innovative ideas. In working towards creating a truly innovative office culture, pull away from the formality of the traditional meetings. Outlook meeting requests with required and optional attendees scheduled in conference rooms will not do the trick.
Instead, opt for an informal lunch outing or even an afternoon of bowling. Invite a few people who would not normally attend meetings, ask them for their opinion and value their input.
Rank and title do not preclude individuals from providing good ideas. Of utmost importance is allowing employees to have their voice heard outside of the stifling setting of a normal meeting and easing away from the rank and file corporate structure which often inhibits more junior employees from providing the company with ideas.
At the core of an innovative culture lies time set aside to pursue personal interests. Many of the most successful companies practice this concept by allocating up to 20% of R&D time to individual pursuits. The concept is quite simple.
Innovative minds actively engaged in their personal interests have the ability to produce incredibly successful products outside the organization’s normal bounds of research. In addition, R&D employees are generally much more satisfied with their jobs and lives when they are allowed some personal time.
While it might seem easy to unleash an R&D team for 5%-20% of their work week, the process is not quite that simple. A prerequisite to this step is to have a team in place with a balanced and diverse set of backgrounds – both personal and educational.
In addition, there must also be steps in place to cultivate the ideas being researched and created during free time. Solutions to this range from informal discussion groups, to the R&D proposing their ideas to one another in a casual setting and evaluating each idea based on a set of criteria with the company’s goals in mind.
This concept is perhaps the most simple way to begin building an innovative work environment. Negative attention inhibits employee participation and therefore is bad for the company culture. However, in the business of innovation, failure is inevitable. It is not possible for all proposals to make it to market.
However, instead of focusing on what went wrong, focus on what went right. Even in failure there are things that can be learned to facilitate the innovative process more efficiently in the future.
Some companies go as far as celebrating failure as a way to keep employees from shying away. Business leaders should keep an eye on employees who have had failed ideas or proposals to ensure that their innovative productivity is not adversely affected. These employees should be encouraged to continue submitting ideas with an emphasis on being non-judgmental.
Unlike many things in business, an innovative culture cannot be bought or sold. From one perspective, it can be the most cost-effective concept to implement as a majority of its components do not require explicit expenditures. Business leaders must assume the responsibility to creating this type of environment and learn to move beyond company goals, mission statements, and other static documents.
They must make active strives to involve the entire company in the innovative process, making sure each employee realizes the value of their opinion. It is also up to them to be open minded, and assert the value of this trait to others. Finally, it’s key that an organization moves away from the traditional rigid corporate structure which is so prevalent in the business world. Innovation cannot be borne out of rigidity and any company wanting to stay competitive would be wise to avoid it.
Read more about the topic here:
Building the Innovation Culture
How to Build a Culture of Innovation
Shaping an Innovative Culture
