What should managers do to get innovative employees?
Can you list five ideas on what managers should do to get innovative employees?
I was recently asked this question by a journalist and having pondered a bit on the e-mail, I decided to turn things a bit upside down and start out by challenging the managers first. This was my reply:
• Look into a mirror and ask yourself whether the person you see really understands innovation.
• Get external validation of your own self-assessment on your innovation capabilities – or lack thereof.
• Make the adjustments needed – if any – for you to manage innovative people.
• Focus on people before concepts, processes and ideas.
• Make a plan for how you will identify and develop the people you need to drive innovation within your department. Recruit accordingly inside and outside your organization.
• Understand your corporate innovation strategy and align your projects to this strategy. Hopefully, the innovation strategy has been aligned to the overall corporate strategy.
• Help your company create an innovation culture by giving your people the time and resources needed to develop a new mindset, skills and relationships.
• Give yourself and your employees time to reflect – our biggest challenge today is time.
What can you add to this list?
Thomas Edison said it best. “There are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”
In fact most companies don’t need to “get” innovative employees. They just have to quit stifling the ones they have.
Managers need to get out of the way and let the employees do what they were hired to do.
The corporate “culture” needs to quit stuffing people into whatever boxes they cram everyone and let the individuals develop their own culture of innovation.
“Innovation strategy” is an oxymoron. You cannot strategize innovation. Unfettered employees can innovate and will develop ingenious solutions to any problem. They simply need to be free to do so.
David, thanks for the comment! I really like the qoute you used
I agree that companies should quit stifling the innovative employees they already have. This happens way too often.
I disagree on strategy. Of course, you can have an innovation strategy. I would even say you should have one as it helps you get the best out of your resources. No need to just fumbling around in the dark and become a victim to serendipity only.
Stefan
David,
While I agree with you that it is important for managers to stop stifling the employees they already have, I agree with Stefan that you can have an innovation strategy.
In practice, people at the bottom don’t create culture, the processes and politics created by people at the top ultimately create culture. People at the bottom can try to subvert the culture, but they can’t create it. That is why cultural changes require unwavering commitment from the top to communicate and reinforce the desired changes.
And, if an organization has any hopes of becoming more innovative, the leadership must be willing to lay out clear and concise innovation strategy and goals, build clear visualizations of the organization and how to contribute, and train people how to be business innovators.
My two cents
Braden (@innovate on Twitter)
http://twitter.com/innovate
I love David’s iteration of Edison and while it hurts to agree that Innovation Strategy is a bit oxymoronic (since I have been a believer for years), I do believe it spins that way. That said, I think that Innovation Strategy is a bit of a social culture development of a person/group/division/company/organization. Development of a culture can be very strategic and that is what is needed to drive or allow innovation to flourish. It is also spreading the religion of good innovation that is part of the strategy; otherwise it happens in pockets and potentially dies on the vine.
Every employee is innovative. It’s about providing space for them to express it. And ‘This’ happens only with the ‘culture’ of the organization.
Is the organization open to feedback? Is the organization looking at adapt newer, better practices in the various domains – IT, Marketing, Sales, HR – you name it.? And when I mean organization, it is the Top Management. If they have the flexibility as Managers, it is sure to show in the employees down the line.
The other aspect of Innovation is “Idea” Vs “Implementation”. Many have an idea, but don’t know how to go about executing it. Which is where a strategy team helps, where they consolidate and do a feasibility study before getting into execution mode. And yes, please involve the guy who gave the idea for gods sake.
thanks a lot to stephan and david. I agree with David about innovation strategy. what is needed is not an innovation strategy but a business strategy with a clear company vision, then innovation will help in reaching this goal. if we accept we have to stop stifling employees we have already, we have to accept that some work done will not contribute to the current biz strategy , at least now, and even more that some initiatives will completly faill.
This is for me the key thing to really release innovation culture in a company.
Innovation starts by basic parctical things:
how to make my idea known?
how tio format it in order to expose it decision maker?
how to build a plan for at least starting a first step?
these are very practical steps that are very often very difficult for people used to be deeply embedded in the day to day work and for whom execution, execution and execution are the main and only concern they have to take care.
Hi to get innovative employees 1st I suggest we look at how we can retain the employee’s that make innovation move on the ground and add value to themselves and your business.
1/ Key point for me is trust and empower staff to deliver the business innovation strategy and to ensure they can provide direct input to allow it to evolve..
2/ Allow staff to look at innovation outside of their work environment to identify fresh ideas that they can bring back into the business.
3/ Staff development is key, what would they like to learn as opposed to what do you want them to learn
4/ Find our what form of incentivisation will make them tick, it can be very simple…
5/ Set them challenges and provide active leadership & support
6/ Provide regular feedback in the style and communication that they can relate to..
Above all make sure you are aligned to common strategic business objectives and progress against these can be measured.
William
I would add:
- discontinue the funtional silo mentality, even if you can’t change the actual org chart. Employees who are made aware of what is happening in other parts of the company, and encouraged to interact with other funtions, have more opportunities to be innovative – sometimes the innovative ideas don’t come from the people immersed in the process, but those viewing it.
- Recognize and reward innovation. Many ideas will need to be nutured before one takes off – back to Edison, I didn’t fail, but learned many ways how NOT to make a lightbulb.
Recognize the people who are contributing ideas, and attemtping to nuture them- it will encourage others to do the same.
I disagree with the idea that you can’t have an innovation strategy. If this is a business, every aspect needs a strategy/ plan (marketing, infrastructure, new product development, etc). It’s the only way to prioritize and execute. A CEO can’t wake up one day and say, “I want my company to be more innovative,” and it just happens.
Culture is something that gets neglected more often than not, and it is an organization’s culture that helps the company move in the right direction, bring on the right people, and retain talent.
Instill a culture of hope.
http://zenstorming.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/people-of-hope-are-more-creative/
Turns out that hope is a great motivator and leads to higher creative output.
Hi,
One way for management to start inculcating a culture of innovation would be to give their employees Problems to fix instead of Solutions to implement.
It’s not difficult but it does mean giving up on the mindset “I know best”.
Thanks for the tips on getting/empowering people on innovation. Cant add too much to the post and accompanying comments.
I do want to add my 2 cents on Innovation Strategy. I feel it to be a fundamental part of being a consistently and successfully innovative company.
It should provide essential decision making guidelines to which all employees can align in pursuit of the business strategy/vision. It should state how much risk the company is willing to take, the balace between radical and incremetal initiatives, the focus on product/services/process/etc. Further, it should always motivate and encourage people to innovate and ensure that the necessary resources are made available at the right time and in the right quantity. And, and, and… It is the fundamental framework that will make innovation in a company work consistently (or as much as possible).
It doesn’t need to be called an Innovation Strategy, but these guild lines need to exist for innovation to work.
Heinz, you make a lot of good points here on Innovation Strategy, especialy for larger organizations.