Innovation is the key to staying ahead of the competition, solving complex problems, and creating value for customers and society. But how can you develop the next generation of innovators who can think creatively, act boldly, and collaborate effectively? Here are some tips to foster a culture of innovation in your organization and inspire your employees to unleash their potential.
Curiosity is the fuel of innovation. It drives people to explore new possibilities, challenge assumptions, and learn from failures. To develop curious innovators, you need to create a safe and supportive environment where they can ask questions, experiment, and receive feedback. You also need to provide them with diverse and stimulating experiences, such as exposure to different industries, markets, customers, and technologies. By encouraging curiosity, you can help your employees develop a growth mindset and a passion for discovery.
Observar, preguntar, investigar, todas estos skills nos llevan a descubrir una información valiosa para nuestro proceso de innovación. Al fin y al cabo esta curiosidad por comprender los problemas, conocer al usuario, o comprender el entorno, la que nos lleva a poner en duda nuestros propios supuestos y formas de ver las cosas y abrazar la ambigüedad y el cambio. Todo esto es fundamental para lanzar procesos de innovación asentados en "problemas reales" que hay necesidad de solucionar. El verdadero innovador es alguien curioso, que se fija en los detalles, que pone en duda sus supuestos y que reconoce que necesita saber más.
Diversity is the source of innovation. It brings together different perspectives, skills, and backgrounds that can spark new ideas, solutions, and insights. To promote diversity, you need to recruit, retain, and reward people who have varied experiences, opinions, and identities. You also need to foster a culture of inclusion, where everyone feels valued, respected, and heard. By promoting diversity, you can help your employees leverage their differences and synergize their strengths.
When we speak about diversity in innovation, it's crucial to think beyond just demographic diversity: ?? Cognitive diversity: how people perceive, think, and solve problems. Combining different personality types and thinking styles can hugely enhance a team's problem-solving capabilities. ?? Cultural diversity: takes into account different values, beliefs, norms, and ways of understanding the world. It enhances our ability to operate in international markets and design products that are culturally sensitive. ?? Functional diversity: in professional disciplines, or departments within a company. Combining insights from different functions, like engineering, marketing, finance, or HR, enables disruptive thinking and holistic solutions.
Creativity is the process of innovation. It involves generating, evaluating, and implementing novel and useful ideas. To empower creativity, you need to provide your employees with time, space, and resources to explore their ideas and experiment with different approaches. You also need to encourage them to use various tools and techniques, such as brainstorming, prototyping, testing, and iterating. By empowering creativity, you can help your employees develop their skills and confidence as innovators.
"Creativity is THE process of innovation". This statement shouldn't be there. Creativity might be a process in the brain but it is not a standard one that works for all. Standard creativity processes give the illusion of creativity and only help those who are not creative. Truly creative people are dragged down by "creative" normative exercises/processes. Plus, innovation is possible without creativity and sometimes the most creative people are not capable of innovation, but certainly inventions. Why do people from art have all sponsors? Because they often are great at painting but horrible at making it adopted. Creativity can be a key component of the innovation process it's not THE process.
Creativity is only the first step in the Innovation lifecycle. It not the whole enchilada. Once we get the juices, implementation of these ideas and constant iteration will translate your team's creativity into true innovation—generating value.
La creatividad nos permite imaginar mil formas de solucionar un problema y descubrir que con suerte, solo una es la acertada. Una vez que conocemos bien los problemas, las necesidades de los usuarios, sus puntos de dolor, es la hora de abrir el proceso creativo utilizando técnicas divergentes. Se trata de generar el mayor numero de ideas posible, de tal manera que podamos generar de entre ellas las mejores. Desde el conocido brainstorming hasta el brainwriting, el scamper o los seis sombreros para pensar, la creatividad es la manera de pensar en nuevas formas de solucionar los problemas sin ce?irnos a los paradigmas existentes.
Risk-taking is the attitude of innovation. It requires people to step out of their comfort zones, embrace uncertainty, and learn from mistakes. To reward risk-taking, you need to recognize and celebrate your employees' efforts, achievements, and failures. You also need to provide them with constructive and timely feedback, coaching, and mentoring. By rewarding risk-taking, you can help your employees overcome their fears and challenges and grow as innovators.
If we want to encourage ambitious innovators who take risks and push the limits of what has been done until now, there's one key incentive mechanism to get right: ? We need to link rewards to the right mindsets and behaviours (discovery, experimentation, learning from data, transparency) ?? We mustn't link rewards to outcomes (like "project success = good; project failure = bad") To reach successful outcomes, innovators need to be allowed to fail. But if failure is not an option, then risk-taking will dry up - along with any hope for success.
Si quieres matar la innovación en la organización, lo mejor que puedes hacer es demonizar y penalizar el fracaso. La innovacion lleva implícito el riesgo y los innovadores asumen esa incertidumbre como parte natural del proceso de cambio. Asumir riesgos debe llevar implícito un reconocimiento al equipo, sea cual sea el resultado final. Si obtenemos un gran éxito hay que celebrarlo y reconocer al equipo. Si por el contrario no llegamos a buen puerto, hay que abrir un proceso de reflexión y aprendizaje, reconocer el esfuerzo de los participantes y agradecer su participación y compromiso para seguir intentándolo.
Collaboration is the foundation of innovation. It enables people to share their knowledge, insights, and resources and to co-create value for their customers and stakeholders. To build collaboration, you need to establish a clear and compelling vision, mission, and goals for your innovation projects. You also need to facilitate effective communication, coordination, and cooperation among your employees and with your external partners. By building collaboration, you can help your employees leverage their collective intelligence and creativity.
La innovación es un trabajo de equipo, y por lo tanto necesita de la colaboración activa de las personas de la organización. La imagen del innovador solitario que tiene una iluminación o momento eureka dista mucho de la realidad. Es conveniente que todas las áreas funcionales colaboren en pos de la innovación, desde marketing ofreciendo su conocimiento del cliente (voice of customer), investigación y desarrollo con la búsqueda de nuevas soluciones, ingeniería o producción evaluando e implementando prototipos, pruebas y desarrollos, recursos humanos gestionando la cultura adecuada para el cambio, y por supuesto el liderazgo para l innovación que necesita la empresa.
Leadership is the catalyst of innovation. It involves inspiring, influencing, and empowering others to pursue innovation opportunities and overcome innovation challenges. To nurture leadership, you need to model the behaviors and mindsets of an innovator, such as curiosity, diversity, creativity, risk-taking, and collaboration. You also need to delegate authority and responsibility to your employees and support them in their innovation journeys. By nurturing leadership, you can help your employees become the next generation of innovators.
The best innovators, and by extension the best innovation leaders, are insatiably curious. Rather than seeking to be right all the time (maybe you've met one or two managers like this?) true innovators have an unquenchable thirst for new knowledge. The best organisations and leaders know how to recognise this quality in their innovators (and job candidates). It's then essential that they continue to encourage and develop them.
El liderazgo para la innovación es consciente de que el cambio debe producirse en un caldo de cultivo (cultura) adecuado. Esto significa que el líder debe promover la asunción de riesgos, la observación y el descubrimiento, facilitar los recursos necesarios, generar puntos de encuentro y colaboración, reconocer los esfuerzos del equipo. Se trata de balancear las habilidades de innovación con las de ejecución, desarrollando organizaciones ambidiestras que son capaces de gestionar con eficacia el presente mientras construyen el futuro con el que se van a encontrar.
In my experience it’s not so much about developing employees to be innovative thinkers, but rather identifying employees who have the potential to be innovators and providing them with the tools and resources necessary to innovate. I have found that 30%-40% of employees are not interested in innovating. That is not a bad thing as it’s never good to force someone to try to be an innovative thinker. Approximately 10%-15% of employees have the ability to be truly innovative thinkers and I believe it also requires the ability to think strategically in order to optimize the potential benefit. A truly innovative thinker will know WHEN to stop worrying about THE HOW to include the ability to quickly evaluate risk and reward.