How can you scale your innovative culture as your organization grows?

How did mNC fast food chains maintained the taste and aroma even opening in remote locations? Well it's a system, you develop value champions and their job is to create more champions . Creating more champions is not a personal choice but a KPi which is applauded when the number grows

Yes it’s important to align values and goals throughout the organisation but more importantly it’s the behaviours that underpin these that will make or break a company.

Scaling an innovative culture in a growing organisation comes with several key challenges: ??Maintaining Agility with Size - As organisations grow, they often become more bureaucratic and less agile. This can stifle innovation, as processes and hierarchies delay decision-making and risk-taking. ??Aligning Vision and Strategy - Ensuring that the entire organisation, from new hires to different departments, understands and aligns with the core vision and strategy for innovation can be challenging as the organisation expands. Masking sure everyone is aligned and in the loop.

??Resource Allocation - Balancing the allocation of resources between core business operations and innovative initiatives can be difficult. There's a risk of either underfunding innovation or neglecting core business needs. ??Communication Barriers - As organisation’s grow, maintaining effective communication across departments and levels becomes more complex. This can lead to silos that hinder the free flow of ideas. ??Measuring Impact of Innovation - As the scale increases, measuring the impact of innovation initiatives and aligning them with business goals becomes more complex and crucial

In order to unleash creativity, which is the fuel for innovation, you need to empower people with agency. Creativity is stimulated by the feeling that your contribution matters and that it can serve a goal greater than oneself. Never attempt to stimulate creativity with money, as solid research has already demonstrated that this approach simply does not work

Empowerment is sometimes confused with giving more tasks or increasing responsibility. Still, empowerment is giving the liberal opportunity for people to decide and take accountability for their actions as an adult. For example, the most straightforward things can be changed, like taking personal leave, budgeting, or approvals for a specific level, up to $10,000 or $50,000. When decision-making authority is given to people, it increases accountability, naturally improving responsibility and empowering employees.

The growth of an organization hinges on fostering a collaborative and diverse culture. Diverse teams bring varied perspectives, fueling innovative solutions. Effective collaboration, harnessing these diverse insights, leads to groundbreaking ideas and approaches. It's essential to cultivate an environment where varied voices are heard and collaboration is not just encouraged but ingrained in the organizational fabric. This synergy of different perspectives is a powerful catalyst for sustained innovation.

??Scaling Processes and Tools - What worked for a smaller team may not work for a larger organisation. Adapting and scaling processes, tools, and systems to support innovation without becoming cumbersome is a key challenge. ??Diversity and Inclusion - As the organisation grows, ensuring diversity in teams and inclusivity in the innovation process can be challenging, yet it's crucial for fostering a wide range of ideas and perspectives.

??Preserving Company Culture - Maintaining the original culture of creativity and innovation in the face of rapid growth, new hires, and potentially different corporate cultures (in case of mergers or acquisitions) is a significant challenge. ??Talent Retention and Development - Keeping and nurturing talent that thrives in an innovative environment becomes challenging as the organisation’s structure and dynamics change.

An interconnected organisation that speaks consistently to their colleagues in other divisions will be far more likely to adapt to change quickly. If everyone is working together it’s easier to relevant changes for an innovative culture.

Consider embracing a perspective of culturing rather than culture. Seen as culturing encourages and facilitates the ongoing emergence and expansion of your culture.

Within this step, the role of leaders in the organization is critical. They need to communicate the importance of an innovative culture, ensure that their personal behavior aligns with the innovative culture, and, even more importantly, manage business processes (budgets, structures, policies, etc.) based on that culture. In many organizations, leaders effectively role model the first two activities but often neglect the last one, which has the highest potential impact.

Measuring Impact of Innovation - As the scale increases, measuring the impact of innovation initiatives and aligning them with business goals becomes more complex and crucial. Ensure the teams are fully involved.

As organisations grow, some aspects of culture may become less relevant while others become more important. A startup needs a lot of innovation and agility. But once it scales it must build equal value for execution consistency and that has implications on culture. How much innovation and where it’s needed, also change and culture should be deliberately crafted to find the right balance.

To overcome these challenges, organisations need to be proactive in adapting their strategies, processes, and culture as they grow, ensuring that the innovative spirit is not lost in the process of scaling up.