Innovation is the lifeblood of any successful team, but it can be hard to maintain in a fast-paced and competitive environment. How can you keep your team's innovation skills sharp and foster a culture of creativity and collaboration? Here are some tips to help you and your team stay ahead of the curve and generate new ideas.
One way to stimulate innovation is to challenge your team with new problems, projects, or goals that require them to think outside the box and apply their skills in different ways. You can also encourage your team to challenge themselves and each other by setting stretch targets, asking for feedback, and sharing best practices. Challenging your team can help them develop a growth mindset, learn from failures, and embrace change.
You can encourage team innovation by putting in place rewards and incentives such as contest that rewards employees with pto, trips, prize(s) or cash.
In my experience, allowing input from team leaders, has a two prong positive impact. The team member feels valued and respected and by being heard, they also rise to challenge processes and provide actionable collaborative solutions. It has always been important to me to recognize differences and strengths of my team. allowing them the space to make decisions, solve problems, and to stretch themselves to foster growth.
Challenge your team by asking them to take themselves out of the marketing demographic. Rather ask them to develop a system that would be appealing to a younger demographic. Use other perspectives.
You should also consider taking your team to ESCAPE games! Encourages you to work as a team! Quickly see your teams strengths and weaknesses. After, go for dinner and sit at a round table if possible!
Another way to support innovation is to provide your team with the resources and support they need to experiment, test, and implement their ideas. This could include giving them time, space, budget, tools, training, or mentorship. You can also create a safe and supportive environment where your team can share their ideas, opinions, and feedback without fear of judgment or criticism. Providing resources and support can help your team feel valued, motivated, and empowered.
An example of this might include organic discussions around personal and professional development relating life experiences after listening to a TedX, reading a book or published article. Allowing a comfortable environment for group discussions supports vulnerability which inherently brings a team closer together.
A third way to foster innovation is to encourage diversity and inclusion in your team. This means respecting and appreciating the different perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, and skills that each team member brings to the table. You can also seek out and involve diverse stakeholders, customers, or partners in your innovation process. Encouraging diversity and inclusion can help your team generate more ideas, avoid groupthink, and create solutions that meet the needs of a wider audience.
Each team member brings to the job layers of life experienced which impact how they interact and perform. Diversity adds another beautiful layer to those life experiences which may include growing up in other countries, alongside parents working in the farm field as immigrants, or integrating into the workplace as a refugee. Different perspectives from each team members fosters collaboration that cannot be found in any other way and it is beautiful.
As a team leader you have to make sure everyone on the team is participating the newest and least experienced person may be sitting on your idea so encourage everyone to participate there are no bad answers. voice it and give every one a chance to hear your idea.
Every team member bringing something different to the team not one team member is more important than the other it is just like a working engine if one piece fails the whole engine stops this is where importance and teamwork comes to hand. I always put everybody before me when it comes to my team members whether they are under me or over me I never take full credit for anything it is a team effort and the team gets the credit not me
A fourth way to boost innovation is to reward and celebrate your team's efforts and achievements. This could include giving recognition, feedback, praise, incentives, or opportunities for your team members who demonstrate innovation. You can also celebrate your team's successes and learnings, as well as the failures and challenges that led to them. Rewarding and celebrating innovation can help your team feel appreciated, inspired, and engaged.
A fifth way to sustain innovation is to learn and improve continuously as a team. This means collecting and analyzing data, feedback, and results from your innovation projects and using them to identify what works, what doesn't, and what can be improved. You can also encourage your team to reflect on their own performance, strengths, and areas for development, and to seek out new knowledge, skills, or insights. Learning and improving continuously can help your team adapt, innovate, and grow.
We try to focus on what we call "One Percenters", which is basically anything that can improve what we are already doing by a little amount, like a 1% improvement. These all add up over time and before you know it your productivity (and results) have gone up massively.
Expanding on the 1%, I feel it is important to grow, learn, and/or improve at a regular interval. If you have only 30/day to dedicate to self-study, so be it. 1 hour but only 5 days/week, that is ok. I am self studying 5 days per week 2 hours during the week and 3 hours on the weekend. I get up early before the day has a chance to sidetrack me. Whatever time you choose, commit to it. Growing, learning, improving happens a little at a time over a great amount of time. Also, it can be painful and frustrating at times. At least for me. That is part of the process get comfortable in that space. You got this!
A sixth and final way to enhance innovation is to have fun and enjoy the process as a team. This means creating a positive and playful atmosphere where your team can have fun, laugh, relax, and bond. You can also incorporate fun and enjoyable activities, games, or exercises into your innovation process to spark creativity, curiosity, and collaboration. Having fun and enjoying the process can help your team reduce stress, increase morale, and unleash their potential.
Fun at work is crucial! Often considered as frivolous or as an added extra, there are so many benefits to prioritising fun and humour among colleagues and a wider staff team. Dedicated time to connect with our co-workers in more ways than work meetings is a great humaniser, and connecting through play creates a safe, contained environment for employees to be able to express what they are feeling related to the session (excited, nervous, energised) without fear of retribution. With practice, team members can build on this and recognise how they feel in pressurised work situations and learn strategies for managing and even using these feelings to their advantage (not be managed by nerves).