Challenge 6: Do you foster innovation efforts?
Diagnosis
From time-to-time innovation may occur spontaneously without resources. But such Eureka moments are despite some misconceptions rare. You will need to prepare culture processes and dedicate tangible and intangible resources to support innovation. Without basic information, knowledge, tools and resources your employees won’t be able to innovate. Those don’t need to be extensive, for some types of innovation. But you need to make sure that you provide what is needed to enable innovation.
Positive aspects | Negative aspects |
|---|---|
My team is constantly informed that innovation is relevant for our company. | Employees are not aware that engaging in innovation is expected from them. |
The team members understand how they are expected to contribute to innovation. | Even if employees present viable solutions or suggestions, managers fail to follow up or implement them. |
Our employees have access to efficient ways to share their ideas and concerns and independently of their value they don’t need to fear criticism or judgement. | Me and my executives like traditional, well tested approaches, rejecting any suggestions for new or alternative ways of approaching our operations. |
Our employees have specific time allocated to engage in innovation activities. | Employees are discouraged from asking questions or challenging existing practices. |
There is budget in our company for innovation projects, training, workshops and tools facilitating innovation. | Our strategy focuses on safe and known paths, so we avoid initiatives that involve a degree of risk or uncertainty. |
Team members that contributed innovative ideas or worked on their implementation are recognised and celebrated. | Employees are constantly overloaded with routine tasks, leaving them with little to no time to work on innovative projects. |
Our company has cross-functional activities for creative-thinking and problem solving. | Managers offer clear instructions for every aspect of what employees need to do along innovation process, not leaving employees autonomy or gathering their inputs. |
We have a clear path how we collect innovation ideas, choose those for implementation and how we implement and incubate them. | Employees who contribute innovative ideas or solutions receive no acknowledgment. |
We have small pilot projects to test best ideas that can contribute to our long-term objectives and realisation of vision. | Employees are encouraged to compete across teams within your company. |
Asking questions and challenging the status quo is encouraged and treated with respect rather than as obstacle. | Managers consistently provide highly negative feedback on innovative initiatives, discouraging employees from pursuing new ideas. |
Me and our managers regularly communicate with employees to understand their needs, challenges, and ideas related to innovation. | There is lack of understanding in our team how will we measure success/or extent of their innovation engagement |
Our teams have specific budget to work on innovation projects. | Employees have no autonomy to test new approaches. |
There is time in the work schedule of our employees to work on innovation projects. | Employees have no access to budget or time for innovation activities. |
Our company has specific tools and technologies that are needed for our employees to work on modern innovation projects that can be relevant for future of our company. | There is no feedback loops for providing feedback or improvements to their innovation activities. |
Our management encourages risk-taking, idea sharing, and experimentation | Employees do not understand how innovation process in your company looks/or is expected to look like. |
Our employees understand that they will not face negative consequences if experimentation with new idea fails. | There is no clear communication what kind of innovation efforts are expected from employees. |
Our employees understand that their engagement in innovation activities is relevant for our company. | Innovation efforts are met with enthusiasm, but its results not implemented. |
In our company we are glad where employees are looking for support and engagement of colleagues from other departments/functions in their projects or solving challenges. | There are no opportunities for employees to get insights from colleagues across functions that could spark innovation ideas. |
Our employees know who to ask for advise if they wish to try something new but lack proper knowledge. | Failures are strongly highlighted and penalised. |
Our employees understand the extent of autonomy they have to experiment with new ideas. | Employees have no opportunity to reach for external knowledge or resources if they lack it internally. |
There is no platform to share and discuss their ideas openly with colleagues and leadership. |
Actions for implementation
In this activity we will help you understand what resources your SME currently offers, and what should be additionally provided to effectively support innovation efforts.
- Follow the list below. Identify all resources along the list that your company currently offers. Be specific. For example, if you provide training, define its focus, as you can at the same time be lacking relevant training while providing others (whether relevant or not).
- Vision and innovation strategy.
- Time – allocated time for experimentation and implementation of innovation projects, including leaders support to allocate support personnel for implementation of best innovation initiatives.
- Leadership support (e.g. mentoring, leaders setting example, and allocating resources for innovation).
- Channels for sharing innovation ideas, challenges etc.
- Freedom to experiment and fail – understanding and support to risk-taking across the leadership and the team and to understand and learn with failed iterations of innovation projects. Support for a employees that can struggle with demotivation and confidence issues after failed attempts to engage in innovation.
- Access to learning – training (especially creative thinking, problem solving and innovation skills), cross disciplinary knowledge and skills development, as well as internal learning from previous projects and innovation initiatives.
- Internal innovation process - clear processes for idea generation, evaluation, development, and implementation.
- Customer insights – access to customer feedback, market research and intelligence.
- Employees autonomy.
- Openness to change, flexibility and adaptability.
- Culture of collaboration.
- Innovation metrics – key performance indicators clearly stating how innovation efforts will be evaluated.
- Access to information - easy access to industry trends, market research, and emerging technologies.
- Innovation Champions - individuals within the organization who champion innovation, act as innovation role models and motivate others.
- Innovation Awards and Recognition.
- Regular feedback and reviews and support for improvement – a protocol within which innovators can present their innovation progress to others and gather their feedback, insights and inputs.
- After you list the resources you have at hand. Think:
- if all provided resources are relevant and corresponding to real needs?
- who have access to them?
- what relevant resources are missing?
Resources we have | Their relevance | Who has access? | What else do we need? | Who should have access? |
- List all observations and discuss it with your team to define how to adjust your resources to optimise them and to make sure they fit real needs and are available to people that can benefit from them.