People are often in the ‘business as usual’ mindset. How can a leader encourage employees to innovate without seeming like they’re dumping extra work onto the existing pile?
It’s important that leaders play to the strengths and passions of their employees. Tasks that are ill-fitted to an individual’s passions are more likely to be deemed as ‘extra work’. It’s also important that leaders clearly spell out how they envision the innovation will benefit the company and provide the necessary incentives to ensure it’s done well.
If innovation is seen as an add-on rather than an essential duty, it will be treated as such. Conversely, a team that understands the value of innovation will consider the time spent on it as valuable.
How should leaders carve out the time and space their team needs to innovate?
This can definitely be tricky. It’s imperative that you take an honest and thorough look at your resources and identify where efficiencies can be made, and where non-important work can be moved. It’s also critical that line managers are informed of any impact innovation could have on deliverables.
The resources you give should be dependent on how important the innovation is to the business, what the potential ROI could be, how long it could take and, of course, the level of internal expertise that already exists. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules to this.
What’s the best way to decide your KPIs and objectives?
Innovation mustn’t be done for the sake of it. There must be clear, actionable and objective reasons or staff will sense the lack of direction and projects will stagnate and die. Identify the areas for improvement as a business and establish the importance of fixing them, then budget accordingly. For example, ask yourself ‘would this improve our ROI, reputation or staff retention?’.
How can you encourage staff to be braver with their ideas?
Through encouragement and incentives. If your feel staff are being too conservative, incentivise them with perks to turn up the dial. Also challenge them to take risks. Fostering healthy competition among staff can mean they find bolder ways to solve problems.
Sometimes it might be better to conduct innovation as a group, because of the complexity of what’s at hand and because they can feed off each other’s ideas and bravery. At other times it can be done individually. If you’re looking for individuals, a good innovator is curious, passionate, tenacious, charismatic and thinks laterally; they will be a great communicator and not afraid of rejection.
Some innovations fail. How should you justify the cost to your CEO and the board?
There’s no easy way to do this. Be transparent, honest and explain in detail why the plan couldn’t come to fruition. There’s always a risk of failure and it’s important that the board is aware of this. Innovation should be risky by nature, attempting to neuter innovation to ensure success will usually result in third-rate ideas that won’t have any impact on the organisation.
It’s important to share the same message with staff. Only through transparency will they feel they have the encouragement and support to take risks that may be necessary. You also have to make sure your team aren’t unreasonably blamed for delays or failings – motivation quickly drops when staff feel like they’ve been hung out to dry.
What type of leadership does innovation require?
This can only be achieved with strong, determined and charismatic leaders who aren’t uncomfortable with hearing no. It’s about having leaders whose teams are comfortable pushing back and knowing there won’t be repercussions. It goes back to that mentality of hiring a team that’s smarter than you. But don’t stop there; allow them to challenge you and use the brains you hired.
How can you improve employees’ engagement in innovation?
Foster transparency around day-to-day objectives. Put mechanisms in place to communicate updates about projects and deadlines. Give employees access to information around what their co-workers and leaders are working on and how they fit into the puzzle. This type of visibility is an effective unifier – it encourages teamwork, promotes better working relationships and collaboration, and aligns the team toward one goal.
Employees don’t want to simply be a means to an end. They want to know the ‘why’ behind their jobs and how their work contributes to the bigger picture. The key is to clearly indicate the benefit to the company. Provide the individual or group with the tools to complete the task; support them throughout, encourage them, celebrate successes and commiserate failures.
