Challenge 4: How well do you communicate innovation to your employees?
Diagnosis
Innovation refers to a wide range of manifestations: products and services innovations are well known because they bring benefits to both the organization and the customers; there are also process innovations focused on finding better ways to deliver products and services or change the manufacturing method or tools with direct effect only on production. In general, process innovations are not visible either in the organizational environment or from the perspective of external stakeholders.
In our present society, innovation is no longer about inventing new things, but creating new meaning. This can be done only through communication as integral part of the innovation process, supporting every stage from idea generation to penetration on the market, building relationships with employees, research and development partners, customers, competition, and other relevant stakeholders. It is considered that employees should be better and much earlier informed about innovations taking place in the company, that even the company clients.
The less you communicate properly the innovation concept of the company (products, services, and processes), the less the stakeholders will be prepared to face the challenges, benefits, and traps of innovation and your company can lose important competitive advantage and profit.
To try to understand the importance of correctly communicating innovation, please analyse the aspects presented in the table below.
Positive aspects | Negative aspects |
|---|---|
Are you and your managers trained to become innovation promoters inside your company? You will have to translate complex innovations in such a way that the receivers are able to understand the objectives and opportunities related to the new discoveries | The managers are not prepared to involve and persuade people in better understanding the new ideas, products, processes, and technologies |
Have you and your managers created your own vision of innovation and own strategies to make others understand, engage and support innovative ideas? | The managers have not their own vision and strategy regarding the innovation process in the company. They lack the necessary abilities to understand and communicate further the message of innovation, both internally (employees) and externally (clients) |
Have you clearly communicated to your employees the objectives of innovation and how to achieve them? | The employees do not know much about the innovation the company is about to implement, its objectives and the strategy to promote it to external stakeholders so that the negative impact on the employees to be minimum |
Have you communicated to your teams the challenging, but difficult process of innovation so that they stay motivated during constant changing environment? | The employees are not well informed about the innovation process, and they lose motivation when facing constant difficulties and changes. |
Have you clearly stated the role of each employee during the innovation process? When everyone knows their place in the action plan, the success of the innovation strategy is almost guaranteed | The employees do not which is their role in the innovation process. They get scared of the challenges, possible changes that could have direct impact on their jobs and financial stability |
1. Fill in the table with your initial assessment regarding each aspect and the way it is reflected in your company.
2. Take between 2 and 4 weeks to discuss with your managers about the innovation process and create together the most effective strategy to better inform the employees and make them understand the future changes and challenges they will have to face in the short and medium term.
3. Go around the departments and ask your employees about their perception on innovation and its benefits for them, company, and society, how open they are to changes and eager to face new challenges.
4. At the end of the selected period, organize a meeting with your managers and employees and present them the plan, strategy for future innovation, idea behind the concept, benefits and difficulties, roles, and desired outcomes on the long term.
Actions for implementation
If you observe that negative aspects are common in your company, while positive aspects are barely present, you must take seriously implementing effective communication to reduce misunderstandings.
Your objective should be to communicate innovation so that your employees not only know what is coming, but also understand why these changes are important.
Actions to be implemented to reach your goal can include:
1. Set the agenda for the entire innovation process. As a manager supporting innovation, you have to be sure that all your team members are on your side when implementing changes and more important, make sure everything is clear for you first before spreading the information further: ideas, motivation, strategy, vision. You will have to be prepared to give complete and satisfactory answers to questions related to the purpose of innovating, company’s innovation goals, possible challenges that could appear during innovating process and possible solutions to be taken into consideration.
2. Present both benefits and risks of innovating. It is common practice to communicate new idea and present first the benefits of implementing them for the stakeholders inside and outside the company. But communicating possible risks and challenges can be as vital as knowing the benefits. For the employees, this will be perceived as an honest approach of the company, and they will lower their resistance to changes.
3. Present as few ideas as possible at once. You will avoid overwhelming your employees and you will facilitate better understanding. You can present following ideas during the next meeting related to innovation when the initial ones were processed and understood.
4. Embrace transparency. Every time your goal is to successfully implement an innovation program, keep in mind to make everything transparent for your employees: information about process itself, about decision-making processes, project goals, roles, and responsibilities. The information updates can take place during weekly face-to-face meetings, online team meetings or internal social networks where news are uploaded together with important decisions, messages, plans, future steps, challenges, solutions toolkit to avoid difficult challenges.
5. Welcome feedback. Organize weekly meetings to discuss with your employees about the stages of the innovation process, ask them for feedback so that you can improve communication and strategy, if necessary, offer them the opportunity to participate to each step of the process, generate new ideas and make improvement suggestions.