The Innovation Zoo

My innovation family and other animals...3 important psychological considerations for human innovation success

There are a number of fundamentals that are critical to ensuring that innovation thrives in your organisation ...and they are all human!

The flaw in the approach of many organisations to innovation is that they begin with company stuff - like strategies and systems, procedures and policies - targets and benchmarks.

These things are all very good and important in the holistic mix of strategic innovation management but they are nothing to do with supporting the human beings who, after all, are the most important element in innovation management because it is the humans that are going to create the ideas which will lead to the innovations required.

1. Create Cognitive Diversity: We don't all think alike, but sometimes in organisations there is a tendency towards 'group think' a sort of 'this is the way we think' - sort of thinking. That is not great for innovation. It is really critical that we watch out for this and ensure that we are exploring new and different ways of thinking. Consider how things are thought about in different industries or consider how different people might think - Elon Musk or Leonardo daVinci or Mother Teresa ...

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

Mother Teresa

How can you ensure cognitive diversity in your organisation - do you hire for it? train for it? do your leaders demonstrate it? do you notice it and praise it? what about gender differences in thinking or cultural differences?

Of course all humans are capable of creative thought - in fact we are really good at it. However after a while we all can become a little stuck in a thinking rut. We love ruts. We know it is safe to be part of the pack, the herd. So what training do you do to enable you to think in new and fresh ways? Of course you know that Brainstorming doesn't work -don't you?... in fact it is one of the worst ways you can create ideas. There are a lot of great tools and techniques you can use. So at Morgan Sindall we ensure everyone has access to training to ensure they can be professional and flexible thinkers. The short video by Jonah Lehrer explains why brainstorming doesn' t work and the source - theRSA.org and it doesn't get much better than that!

3. Enable Psychological Safety: In their project Aristotle, Google identified Psychological Safety as one of the most important elements for effective teams.

It can be defined as "being able to show and employ one's self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career" 

To innovate people need to feel that they are going to be supported. What do you do in your teams to ensure that people feel that it is ok to say anything, it is ok to be challenged, it is ok to fail .... these things are critical for innovation success.

If we feel afraid we will not develop experimental thinking.

4. Uncover and Remove Unconscious Biases: We all have them but we don't always actively think of them...they are unconscious! When they stay that way we don't have to think of the social stereotypes about certain groups of people that we form because it is outside our own conscious awareness. But one of the limiting factors for innovation especially in large and more mature organisations is that there is a proven unconscious bias against, not only change but also against change makers.

The solution is to become conscious! - now that you are aware and conscious of the fact that there is a proven unconscious bias against, not only change but also against change makers then you can notice it and stop it when you can.

As part of the human zoo we are always wary of change but it is critical that we make ourselves conscious of any such bias.

Of course there are other important factors in the mix to ensure innovation thrives in organisations such as giving people a clear focus for their innovation efforts - specific and not general challenges and giving them the funding, time, permission and autonomy to do it but if you do not have the right psychological foundations, the right skills and positive behaviours in place it is much less likely to survive.

Companies don't Innovate - People do