How to Get More Brilliant Ideas in Your Organization

Welcome back to my LinkedIn newsletter where I share tips, ideas, and strategies to help you become more effective in business and life.

If we haven't been acquainted yet, I’m a professor of organizational and cross-cultural psychology, the author of?Global Dexterity ?and?Reach , and an HBR contributor and consultant.?I also work closely with coaches, trainers, consultants and teachers to certify them in my?Global Dexterity Method .

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I hope you enjoy today's newsletter?about generating brilliant ideas.

There's no single magic formula for generating brilliant ideas. But there is a formula for increasing the odds it will happen. The key is building a culture that stimulates people's intrinsic motivation. How can you do that?

Tip 1: Select on passion.?Do what you can to maximize the odds of creative insights by finding people who are passionate about the mission and goals of your organization. Obviously, it's critical to hire on talent as well. But there typically are enough talented people in the pipeline to also select on passion.

Tip 2: Articulate how your work has meaning. Make sure you give people deep and ongoing insight into the greater good their individual efforts are contributing toward. For example, don't make a programmer believe they are "just writing code." Make sure they deeply appreciate how the code they're writing solves a problem that deeply matters. And keep them updated on this big picture over time.

Tip 3: Build a reward system that enhances intrinsic motivation.?Give constructive, frequent, honest feedback. Find a fair and transparent way to create rewards that honors creative work, and be open to changing your evaluation system based on feedback and experience, just as you are asking your employees to do with their own creative ideas.

In the end, real brilliance isn't finding that once-in-a-lifetime star; rather, it's in creating the conditions and practices in your organization to increase the odds of creative breakthroughs happening from everyone involved.