50 Ways to Foster a Culture of Innovation

I’ve been doing a lot of Orga­ni­za­tional Devel­op­ment related work the past nine years. In fact, even before any­one told me that I was doing Orga­ni­za­tional Devel­op­ment, I was actu­ally doing it already. Before, OD was merely about train­ing. And so OD depart­ments made train­ing pro­grams and took care of train­ing sys­tems and gave inter­nal train­ings and sent peo­ple to exter­nal train­ing. But over the years, there is a real­iza­tion that there are other ways to develop an orga­ni­za­tion aside from training.

OD has to do with mak­ing the whole orga­ni­za­tion become a more well-oiled machine, first by inter­ven­ing in per­for­mance man­age­ment, but now, also by inter­ven­ing in cul­ture build­ing. Orga­ni­za­tions have goals (they call it Vision and Mis­sion, or Objec­tives and Tar­gets). And Orga­ni­za­tional Development’s aim is to develop the orga­ni­za­tion (its man­power, but also its sys­tems and processes) in order to reach those goals. It sounds easy, but it’s really a giant respon­si­bil­ity. The OD per­son has to think like the CEO. He/She needs to be in the man­age­ment cock­pit in order to guide the organization.

One of the ways orga­ni­za­tions thrive nowa­days is through inces­sant inno­va­tion. Steve Job’s Apple (is there any other kind?!) is the epit­ome of an orga­ni­za­tion in the fore­front of inno­va­tion. While I have a lot to say about the over­sized iPod Touch called the iPad, you can­not help but admire the com­pany for push­ing the bound­aries of what is pos­si­ble. Orga­ni­za­tional Devel­op­ment has to take this into con­sid­er­a­tion. OD can­not and should not get in the way of inno­va­tion. In fact, OD is sup­posed to fos­ter a cul­ture of inno­va­tion in companies.

Here are some 50 ways to ensure that a company’s cul­ture, while remain­ing solid, is con­ducive to innovation.

1. Remem­ber that inno­va­tion requires no fixed rules or tem­plates — only guid­ing prin­ci­ples. Cre­at­ing a more inno­v­a­tive cul­ture is an organic and cre­ative act.
2. Wher­ever you can, when­ever you can, always drive fear out of the work­place. Fear is “Pub­lic Enemy #1″ of an inno­v­a­tive cul­ture.
3. Have more fun. If you’re not hav­ing fun (or at least enjoy­ing the process) some­thing is off.
4. Always ques­tion author­ity, espe­cially the author­ity of your own long­stand­ing beliefs.
5. Make new mistakes.

6. As far as the future is con­cerned, don’t spec­u­late on what might hap­pen, but imag­ine what you can make hap­pen.
7. Increase the visual stim­uli of your organization’s phys­i­cal space. Replace gray and white walls with color. Add inspir­ing pho­tos and art, espe­cially visu­als that inspire peo­ple to think dif­fer­ently. Recon­fig­ure space when­ever pos­si­ble.
8. Help peo­ple broaden their per­spec­tive by cre­at­ing diverse teams and rotat­ing employ­ees into new projects — espe­cially ones they are fas­ci­nated by.
9. Ask ques­tions about every­thing. After ask­ing ques­tions, ask dif­fer­ent ques­tions. After ask­ing dif­fer­ent ques­tions, ask them in a dif­fer­ent way.
10. Ensure a high level of per­sonal free­dom and trust. Pro­vide more time for peo­ple to pur­sue new ideas and innovations.

11. Encour­age every­one to com­mu­ni­cate. Pro­vide user-friendly sys­tems to make this hap­pen.
12. Instead of see­ing cre­ativ­ity train­ing as a way to pour knowl­edge into people’s heads, see it as a way to grind new glasses for peo­ple so they can see the world in a dif­fer­ent way.
13. Learn to tol­er­ate ambi­gu­ity and cope with soft data. It is impos­si­ble to get all the facts about any­thing. “Not every­thing that counts can be counted. Not every­thing that can be counted counts,” said Ein­stein.
14. Embrace and cel­e­brate fail­ure. 50 to 70 per cent of all new prod­uct inno­va­tions fail at even the most suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies. The main dif­fer­ence between com­pa­nies who suc­ceed at inno­va­tion and those who don’t isn’t their rate of suc­cess — it’s the fact that suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies have a LOT of ideas, pilots, and prod­uct inno­va­tions in the pipeline.
15. Notice inno­va­tion efforts. Nur­ture them wher­ever they crop up. Reward them.

16. When you’re pro­mot­ing inno­va­tion in-house, always pro­mote the ben­e­fits of a new idea or project, not the fea­tures.
17. Don’t focus so much on tak­ing risks, per se, but on tak­ing the risks OUT of big and bold ideas.
18. Encour­age peo­ple to get out of their offices and silos. Encour­age peo­ple to meet infor­mally, one-on-one, and in small groups.
19. Think long term. Since the aver­age suc­cess­ful “spin-off” takes about 7.5 years, the com­mit­ment to inno­va­tion ini­tia­tives need to be well beyond “next quar­ter.“
20. Cre­ate a port­fo­lio of oppor­tu­ni­ties: short-term, long-term, incre­men­tal, and dis­con­tin­u­ous. Just like an invest­ment port­fo­lio, bal­ance is critical.

21. Involve as many peo­ple as you can in the devel­op­ment of your inno­va­tion ini­tia­tive so you get upfront buy-in. This is the “go-slow now to go-fast later” approach. (The oppo­site approach of hav­ing a few peo­ple go off to a deserted island and come back with their con­cept is almost always doomed to fail­ure).
22. Improve the way brain­storm­ing ses­sions and meet­ings are facil­i­tated in your orga­ni­za­tion. Cre­ate higher stan­dards and prac­tices.
23. Make sure peo­ple are work­ing on the right issues. Iden­tify spe­cific busi­ness chal­lenges to focus on. Be able to frame these issues as ques­tions that start with the words, “How can we?“
24. Com­mu­ni­cate, com­mu­ni­cate, com­mu­ni­cate, com­mu­ni­cate, com­mu­ni­cate and then com­mu­ni­cate again. Deliver each impor­tant mes­sage at least six times.
25. Select and install idea man­age­ment soft­ware for your intranet. (Or, if you’ve got an intranet and cer­tain direc­to­ries avail­able to every­one, set up your own idea depository/database and make it as inter­ac­tive as you want).

26. Don’t focus on growth. Growth is a prod­uct of suc­cess­ful inno­va­tion. Focus on the process of becom­ing adept at tak­ing ideas from the gen­er­a­tion stage to the mar­ket­place.
27. Make cus­tomers your inno­va­tion part­ners, while real­iz­ing that cus­tomers are often lim­ited to incre­men­tal inno­va­tions, not break­through ones.
28. Under­stand that the best inno­va­tions are ini­ti­ated by indi­vid­u­als act­ing on their own at the periph­ery of your orga­ni­za­tion. Don’t make your inno­va­tion processes so rigid that they get in the way of infor­mal and spon­ta­neous inno­va­tion efforts. Build flex­i­bil­ity into your design. Think “self-organizing” inno­va­tion, not “com­mand and con­trol” inno­va­tion.
29. Find new ways to cap­ture learn­ings through­out your orga­ni­za­tion and new ways to share these learn­ings with every­one. Use real-life sto­ries to trans­fer the learn­ings.
30. Stim­u­late inter­ac­tion between seg­ments of the com­pany that tra­di­tion­ally don’t con­nect or col­lab­o­rate with each other.

31. Develop a process of try­ing out new con­cepts quickly and on the cheap. Learn quickly what’s work­ing and what’s not.
32. Avoid analy­sis paral­y­sis. Chaotic action is prefer­able to orderly inac­tion.
33. Before reach­ing clo­sure on any course of action, seek alter­na­tives. Make it a dis­ci­pline to seek the idea after the “best” idea emerges.
34. Know that attack­ing costs as a root prob­lem solves noth­ing. Unrea­son­able costs are almost always a sign of more pro­found prob­lems (e.g. inef­fi­cient struc­tures, processes or train­ing).
35. A great source of new ideas are peo­ple that are new to the com­pany. Get new hires together and tap their brain­power and imagination.

36. Get cus­tomer feed­back before com­mit­ting resources to a product’s devel­op­ment.
37. Seek diver­sity of view­points. Get peo­ple together across func­tions. A diver­sity of views sparks more than con­flict — it sparks inno­va­tion.
38. Invite out­side part­ners early on when explor­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties. Find ways for your com­pany to part­ner with oth­ers and actively share ideas, tech­nolo­gies, and other capa­bil­i­ties.
39. Avoid extreme time pres­sures.
40. Don’t make the cen­ter of your efforts to help peo­ple be more cre­ative a phys­i­cal “cre­ativ­ity cen­ter.” Fold your inno­va­tion resources into your busi­ness units.

41. Don’t make inno­va­tion the respon­si­bil­ity of a few. Make inno­va­tion the respon­si­bil­ity of each and every employee with per­for­mance goals for each and every func­tional area.
42. Give your peo­ple spe­cific, com­pelling, and mea­sur­able inno­va­tion goals.
43. Try to get as much buy-in and sup­port from senior lead­er­ship as you can while real­iz­ing that true change NEVER starts at the top. How often does the rev­o­lu­tion start with the King?
44. Real­ize that “resource allo­ca­tion” is the last bas­tion of Soviet-style cen­tral plan­ning. Think of new inno­va­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties as “resource attrac­tors.“
45. Pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to align­ment. Ensure that the inter­ests and actions of all employ­ees are directed toward key com­pany goals, so that any employee will rec­og­nize and respond pos­i­tively to a poten­tially use­ful idea.

46. Reward col­lec­tive, not only indi­vid­ual suc­cesses, but also main­tain clear indi­vid­ual account­abil­i­ties and keep inno­va­tion heroes vis­i­ble.
47. Do your best to ensure that lin­ear processes give way to net­works of col­lab­o­ra­tion.
48. Remove what­ever orga­ni­za­tional obsta­cles are in the way of peo­ple com­mu­ni­cat­ing bold, new ideas to top man­age­ment.
49. Sys­tem­atize. Find prob­lems (not only with prod­ucts, but with processes, cus­tomer ser­vice, and busi­ness mod­els) and solve them.
50. Drive author­ity down­wards. Make deci­sions quickly at the low­est level possible.