How do you create an innovative culture?

If I may, as Great Britain prepared for WWII Winston Churchill stated... "Many things were adopted in the war which we were told were technically impossible, but patience, perseverance, and, above all, the spur of necessity under war conditions, made men's brains act with greater vigor, and Science responded to the demands...." This is innovation at its core. A mission and business-critical cause that brings everyone together with a clear vision and purpose. #innovation

It is important to first define what innovation means and align that definition across the organization so that everyone speaks the same language. Otherwise, Innovation can mean different things to different teams and people.

What is innovation in any corporate setup? We have to understand it clearly before we move ahead. We can not be successful in bringing innovation if we follow the model of a team-based top-down approach, where the focus is to bring innovation in products, technology, services, etc. Rather, we need to incorporate innovation into the culture of an Organization with the distributed approach. Strategy and leadership are two pillars to drive innovation across an Organization.

One thing I've realized that clarity of vision and values then prompts our brains to come up with innovative approaches. For instance some years ago people from Punjab state in India repurposed washing machines to churn milk to make butter and cream.

In my book, Lean Agile Mastery: Mastering the 5 C's of Customer-Centric Success, I talk about developing a Culture of Continuous Improvement (one of the 5 C's) which promotes innovation and lean thinking. The other C's include Customer centricity, Collaboration, Coordination and Communication. When all these 5 C's are cultivated, the seeds of innovation are grown.

Get used to creating faster and better quality feedback loops. There is simply nothing more satisfying than being part of a team where praise, acknowledgement and recognition is done in a natural rhythm. Check out "The Wisdom of Geese" (numerous YouTube videos). Old but timeless!

In my book and certificate course: Lean Agile Mastery: Mastering the 5 C's for Customer-Centric Success, I emphasize the importance of cross-functional teams to break down silos, streamline business processes, and enable lean agile transformation. It's critical to have agile teams but a lean agile organization will generate incredible business results.

Again, I think people need to be involved from the start. How to be more happy and to feel more engaged than if you are part of the decision makers from day one?

Controlled and calculative risk-taking is part of the innovation with management of the process and outcome. Innovation is a journey from concept, experimentation, and outcome to validation. The success may not and will not come as desired and the odds are stacked against it. We need to continue with our approach, and as the data suggests, a favorable outcome will follow.

To promote a culture of continuous improvement that spurs innovation, you also need a culture of openness and transparency where people feel safe to ask questions without being called out or to take topics "offline". When this happens, you create an environment not conducive to idea generation and discussion and therefore limit innovation. In my book and certificate course: Lean Agile Mastery: Mastering the 5 C's for Customer-Centric Success, I discuss the importance and methods of promoting and cultivating this culture.

I disagree as for me what you describe is more the transformation of an innovative idea in an innovation. The difficulty and the real added value, the value creation resides more in the innovative idea. To foster that you should encourage intuition, long term vision, problem solving. Fun sessions, corporate games and team building… It would be much more efficient than formal processes.

You need to understand that innovation is a journey and it impacts several parts of the business. You need to figure out the touchpoints, and that is going to help you determine the Key Performance metrics. Speak to all stakeholders as you design key performance metrics. Learnings from the journey and key takeaways need to be recorded as you need to create a repository of knowledge and data.

In my experience, this is key to build creativity as a core value. Give every idea some credit regardless of who it comes from. As an example, you can invite broader teams to preliminary brainstorm sessions and circulate notes post the session acknowledging everyone’s contribution. You can take this to the next level by keeping the product processes very transparent and openly seek feedback on an ongoing basis.

The one thing this article doesn't really cover is how to build a culture that understands bet sizing. People tend to assume bet making is about laying big piles of chips on the table. But the reality is that sometimes the right bet is the small one in a particular context. Maybe adding CSV export is an absolutely breakthrough idea! So leaders need to teach bet estimation, risk understanding, and how to spread bets effectively in order to truly teach innovation through experimentation.

As others have said already in this article, creating and maintaining an innovative culture revolves around many key strategies. . So, will not be repetitive and repeat what’s already been said, but one element important in establishing an innovative culture is the importance of reading. Reading what? Everything and anything that’s applicable. Insights from the greatest leaders in the world. Periodicals, newspapers, internet sources, etc; Learn from the very best and make reading a key priority to establish and nurture an innovative culture

Crafting an innovative culture requires a holistic approach as a leader. Encouraging an environment where experimentation is celebrated, and failure is seen as a stepping stone, not a setback, can inspire creativity. For instance, at our firm, we introduced "Innovation Fridays," dedicating time for team members to work on passion projects. Regular brainstorming sessions and cross-functional collaboration further nurture inventive thinking.