Your team is struggling with innovation pressure. How can you empower them to excel?

The first building block for innovation is trust. Team members who feel psychologically safe can raise innovative ideas. They need to know that the other team members will not ridicule and scrutinize them later. Team members who feel trusted can raise their improvement ideas, as they know that any topic they raise will be evaluated carefully and respectfully.

As a leader or a manager, you need to foster transparency and trust. If you are open about the challenges that you faces, you can also have the support of your team. You need to encourage them to be open, when facing challenges... but for that you need to be open yourself. I would say that you need to celebrate also the success and promote your team outside the boundaries of the team.

Trust is built through consistent action that aligns with your promises. Respecting the views of others, staying up to date as the expert in your field, and great results and referrals contribute to trustworthiness.

I have an open door policy. My team can come and ask me anything everytime if needed. But I foster autonomy. We can have weekly meeting discussing priorities and objectives, but I am expecting that they are autonomous on their daily tasks. Now if there is a problem they cannot solve themselves, I am here for them.

Create an atmosphere where team members feel safe to express their ideas, concerns, and feedback without fear of judgment or retaliation. Regularly recognise and celebrate the contributions and achievements of team members. This boosts morale and reinforces a positive work culture.

When my Team looks to me for guidance, I focus our conversations on mission and values. Our corporate mission and values provides all the guidance they need to act autonomously. They are the guardrails necessary to shape their thoughts and actions related to innovating. An Autonomous state-of-mind supports getting into a "flow" state. Being in "flow" is a positive mindset where creative blockers are dispelled and great innovations are birthed! Also, a valuable byproduct of autonomously created innovations is they are the Team's to own, and champion, within the organization. Significantly increasing the chances the innovations survive and flourish!

People find new innovations when they work together. People find new ideas by combining various fields: data scientists work with sales, marketing enthusiasts work with customers, or leaders work with experts in similar industries. This is how we learn and find innovations together.

What I have found successful is to identify specific challenges/problems that requires Team Members in different departments to work together. In one situation, we found significant gaps in some Client's use of our services requiring our purchasing, sales and marketing teams to figure it out. Purchasing to identify gaps, marketing to craft the messaging, and sales to do the rest.

In today's fast-moving world, leaders need to support the innovation of their teams. -Train new technologies and models. -Encourage people to participate in industry events. -Organize weekly sessions to present new ideas and topics. -Start new projects around various topics. -Give people time to learn about the industry. -Buy books. -Be aware of the changes in the industry.

Innovation costs money but it is also the best hedge against becoming irrelevant in this high tech world! There is a natural tension between paying for activities and not knowing if it will yield a benefit the business directly. I have found that taking the risk is well worth it AND my Team is energized by the trailblazing! Nothing increases a Teams energy like being armed with the very best so they can be successful; while nothing saps energy like outdated and poorly funded innovation efforts.

Once I have empowered my Innovation Team to attack a problem, I have endorsed their efforts and put my trust in their judgement. Logic dictates that I would consider their feedback and adapt the strategic direction based on their findings. Otherwise, I would contradict the authority given them, adversely impacting their morale, and stifle their individual growth.

Innovation pressure is a bit of an oxymoron. Stress and fear block creativity, so try giving more space to allow for true innovation. Have candid conversations around big visions and goals and let that inspire your teams to bring totally new ideas to the table

One fun thing can be to create a stretch project that is a competition. Give them an assignment and gamify it however you can. You can break them out in team, or give everyone their own assignment, but make sure there is visibility into progress, key check ins, prizes, and any other incentives you can offer to build excitement and get them engaged with the ask. If you can get some support and encouragement from upper leadership, even better.