admin The innovative spirit of some brands is so infectious and contagious that others are inspired by them to stoke their own fires of innovation and create novel inventions. Such shining examples of excellence exemplify the very best the market has to offer. However, it is important to privilege the role of leaders in crafting an innovative work culture within the organization that fosters and polishes the inquisitive and creative sides of all the team members, thereby encouraging innovation.
The hidden secret of the most innovative brands in the market today is hidden in their behind-the-scenes story of how a culture of inventive thinking is encouraged and developed. A lot of hard work is goes into empowering employees, setting up favorable workflows, and prioritizing specific initiatives to climb the ladder of success and innovation. Listed below are some of the most fruitful ways in which senior leadership can strategically encourage innovation and novelty within the organization:
Adopt a Multi-Faceted Approach to Innovation
One of the key guiding principles when trying to infuse the spirit of innovation into a brand’s cultural DNA relates to adopting a fresh approach to management as a whole. Leaders must strive to make innovation a common thread spanning across the multiple layers of the organization. It is important to forego the compartmentalization of innovative genius.
Thinking creatively must be a multi-faceted endeavour. It must not remain limited to boardroom meetings where certain teams are responsible for ideating products and others for ideating clever marketing strategies. Instead, leaders must try to break down innovation into its component parts and tackle each individual challenge arising from brainstorming sessions with much more agility.
Measure Your Innovation Metrics Carefully
Measuring an intangible aspect of a business organization is one of the most arduous tasks to be shouldered by a leader. This task becomes even more herculean when the aspect to be measured is as abstract as a culture. This implies that as a leader you need to select your innovation measuring yardstick carefully. Adopting a data-driven approach can no doubt be fruitful, however, since we’ve already established that data analytics cannot necessarily measure intangible aspects of a business like its innovation culture, this route seems to be a poor choice.
Instead, leaders can opt for measuring the return on strategic partnerships or how much time the team has dedicated to discovery. It is important to note that figuring out the right innovation metrics will differ from one firm to another depending on the nature of the organization. Thus, each leader has to identify her/his own measuring yard and build her/his own approach from there onwards.
Overcome the Fear of Failing
As the leader of the organization, you are its molding architect. You must therefore try to embody the very principles you seek to build your team upon. This also related to eliminating the fear of failing to innovate. Always remember the thumb rule that if you are not failing enough, chances are that you are not innovating much either. Accepting failure as a part and parcel of the innovative thinking process is the first step towards building a culture of ingenious thinking.
Your team members will only be willing to take a leap of faith and innovate if they feel that failing to succeed at the first attempt is also ok. This can only be achieved when you lead by example and make sure your team understands that failing is an inevitable component of one’s innovation journey.
Make Retrospection Indispensable
While recognizing that mistakes are part of cultivating an innovative work culture, it is also important to cognize the importance of retrospective assessment. Learning to grow from your mistakes is essential. Approach corporate innovation with a willing drive to learn from your previous misgivings and pitfalls to curate a definitive path to success.
Without tapping into this learning potential you will miss out on underexplored opportunities. Cultivating a culture of innovation depends on one’s ability to seize such hidden opportunities while continuing to grow and develop.
Take a Proactive Stance
Stroking the fire of innovation is not enough, as a leader you must be prepared to take action. A holistically rounded culture of inventiveness can only be crafted when you take a proactive role in sanctioning these new ideas into full-swing campaigns. That being said, as the chief architect of the organization, you must also interrogate the worth of each proposal before sanctioning it for the prototyping phase.
Gather data on the proposal and try to make an informed decision. However, do so promptly. If you keep sitting on innovative ideas for too long, chances are that the idea will soon seize to be novel as someone else would have already ideated the same by then. Moreover, waiting for too long when sanctioning or rejecting an innovative idea may dampen the spirit of your workers, discouraging ingenious thinking.
Building an innovative brand is not an easy task. Few have succeeded in creating such lasting legacies of originality and novelty. Building such a brand relies on a formidable corporate culture that rests on ingenious ideation strategies. If leaders can optimize their efforts in implementing the aforementioned strategies, then creating an innovative culture can be streamlined.
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