CREATING AN INNOVATIVE CULTURE

?A culture of innovation can be a company's primary source of competitive advantage and can pay off steadily over the years.

- Stephen Shapiro, author of 24/7 Innovation

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Rogers, AR, January 28, 2022 (Article 4/5) – In my fourth installment on building company culture to be a strategic advantage, today focuses on creating an innovative culture.?

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Go BIG!!!

?If you want your company to lead your industry into the future and grow aggressively, dreaming big is essential.?Companies unwilling to innovate will not lead their industries for long.???

?Bold initiatives require people.?Talent wants to join a mission that changes the world.?Even if that impact is within a niche industry or internal to the company, they want meaningful work that improves lives beyond just their paycheck.?Challenge employees to dream big and apply aggressive aspirations to whatever they do.?Set the example by creating organizational moonshots and constantly inspiring employees to focus on the strategic vision of what both the organization and they can become.?

?Of course, the first step is solving closer-in stakeholder (usually the customer) needs and pain points to differentiate your products and services in the marketplace.?Fixing fundamental issues enables your organization to move beyond and carve out a truly unique equity in the marketplace over time.?That does not mean people cannot dream of what the future should be while answering the challenges of today.?

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Good ideas come from anywhere - enroll everyone in innovation

?Like overall culture and professional development, innovative cultures don’t just happen; they are planned, structured, and resourced.?Good ideas come from anywhere so encourage teams to think broadly beyond their industry, company, or function for inspiration.?

?Rather than only of a few leaders pushing ideas, seek new ideas from everyone at all levels.?Smart and passionate employees close to the work should feel empowered to bring ideas forward especially for day-to-day operational innovation.?

?However, people must feel comfortable sharing ideas absent of personal judgement or turf battles.?Create a safe space for testing new ideas and let people know failing-fast is not only okay, but encouraged.?Celebrate mistakes, apply their lessons, and keep moving.?

?Take advantage of new employees’ untainted objectivity bringing novel perspectives and analysis regarding what could be, is, and is not working.?Also, support employees who question old assumptions and make new connections across and beyond the organization.?

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Make it easy to participate

?Consider making idea submissions an annual, semi-annual, or even quarterly event. ?Deadlines drive action instead of inaction of festering ideas.?Reward people and teams for the best ideas and enroll their passion to champion execution when possible.?

?One method to expedite idea review is using a common recommendation template. P&G is famous for their 1-page memo while Amazon uses a 6-page format.?Either way, templates structure thinking as much as writing, expose logic gaps, and provide readers a map to absorb and find critical information quickly.?In short, memos force comprehensive analysis so ideas are well-reasoned, data-based (when possible), and clearly communicated opportunities for all to understand.?

?Submissions will be more fully formed avoiding idea fragments just being dumped on leadership to figure out viability and next steps without context or the passion to lead the charge.?They help ensure implications have been anticipated and mitigated with understandable plans.?Common communication structures have the power to improve overall intra-company communications beyond innovations too.?

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A company's culture is the foundation for future innovation.

-Brian Chesky, CEO Airbnb

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Time to fuel innovative passion

?Some of the most innovative companies enable employees with time and resources to work on innovation initiatives of their choosing.?3M’s employee-directed innovation has produced and commercialized several employee-led products including Post-It notes, one of 3M’s biggest product successes.?Google, Apple, and Microsoft have experimented with some form of this practice too.?Facebook is famous for its periodic hackathons that have kept the social network fresh through employee-driven product innovations.??

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Innovation requires friction

?Great innovation is not supposed to be easy or clean.?It is messy and challenging requiring that teams approach ideas with a “how could we” attitude.?This approach changes mindsets to possible solutions vs. impossible challenges while also focusing on the ideas themselves vs. from where they came.??

?High performing innovation teams should be a diverse mix of functions, industry experience, company tenure, external experience, risk tolerance, customer perspectives, etc.?This diversity of thought and experience naturally causes tension.?That healthy friction should drive robust, but respectful debate for developing new solutions collaboratively.?When done correctly, these solutions encapsulate multiple perspectives and thus, eclipse any that one person could produce alone.?Ultimately, solutions are owned then by the entire group because they built it together which usually instills a common commitment to flawless execution.?

?Innovation teams should pressure-test ideas as a part of their process after developing them.?Positive friction internal to the group should seek to identify all vulnerabilities and answer them long before execution.?Once satisfied their new proposals are bullet proof, testing them with customers and a diverse peer group instructed to find any faults is a great, albeit sometimes painful, way to ensure nothing was overlooked.?It also expands the employees who feel some ownership in the creation of the new ideas while reinforcing the importance of collaborative innovation culturally.?

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Balance the old with the new

?Balance what experience can teach with what new perspectives add.?Respect the wisdom tenure brings, but ultimately reward performance. Too much emphasis on employee longevity creates an old timer vs. newcomer rift that can stymy innovation. “We tried that once and it did not work” can become the debilitating mantra.?When seniority blindly trumps new ideas and change, ambitious talent takes their ideas elsewhere - where they are valued.?

?Conversely, dismissing those experienced insights outright can be equally detrimental.?Newcomers would be smart to seek the wisdom of experience without immediately dismissing it as no longer relevant.?

?As time passes, technology, processes, and customers evolve, but old ideas may reemerge with new ones.?Even though past initiatives may have failed due to poor execution or trial before their time, that does not necessarily mean the original idea was wrong.?Specifically, do not ignore insights about why an idea failed before and be sure to analyze any relevance forward.?

?As Roger Martin reminds us in his HBR article The Execution Trap , “A mediocre strategy well executed is better than a great strategy poorly executed.”?Too often, good ideas are overlooked because they failed do to poor execution in the past.?Encouraging employees to remain open-minded is critical to both an innovative culture and execution of that innovation.?

?Please share your thoughts and comments. What works in your organization??My final article will highlight collaboration as the last crucial element to creating culture as a strategic advantage – coming soon.??

*All opinions expressed are solely mine & do not reflect those of any entity named or unnamed.?