3 Secrets of Innovation That Everyone Misses
Are you encouraging diversity,
grooming inclusive leaders, listening to customers? Here are three simple ways
to encourage innovation.
Here are three innovation drivers
that many businesses overlook:
Forget
fit. Hire opposites.
OK, you might have already read
something about this one. James Surowiecki, Franz Johansen, Malcolm Gladwell,
and many others have written about the power of diversity to drive innovation.
Take it seriously. Every company, large or small, struggles to find the right
fit when hiring. We of course want to work with people who are like us, and in
small companies it is especially critical that people work well together. It is
important that there be a kind of connection that makes it fun and rewarding
for everyone. But in the process of trying to find the right "fit,"
many of us wind up losing an essential ingredient for innovation: diversity.
Diversity can mean many things to
many people, but there is overwhelming evidence that having inherently diverse
individuals, women, people of color, gays and lesbians, younger and older
workers, creates the conflict of ideas and experience that is essential to
innovation. As Surowiecki of The New Yorker famously argued, diverse
teams get better outcomes to almost any problem. Just a diversity of thought or
personal styles isn't enough. In other words, hiring an introvert instead of an
extrovert doesn't really make a big difference in terms of innovation
potential. Hiring someone from another culture, gender, or generation does.
That's because the unique life experience that someone diverse brings leads him
or her to understand the world and customers differently. So in your next
interview process when the discussion of "fit" inevitably arises, be
sure you're focused on the right things and that you're not eliminating
critical perspective for personal reasons.
Don't
put Jack Welch in a Zuckerberg world.
Many of the experienced leaders
across industry and companies are operating with sadly outdated skill sets.
U.S. companies spend nearly $14 billion a year on leadership development,
according to a Bersin by Deloitte study. Yet few leaders are really prepared to
lead for innovation. When I was at the Center for Talent Innovation, we found that
63 percent of leaders described their own leadership styles as either "old
school hierarchical" or "command and control." Keep in mind
these were leaders rating themselves. They were probably being kind! Very few
leaders today even understand or appreciate the value of an inclusive, open
leadership style that’s essential for innovation. The reality is that many
leadership programs, including the major MBA programs, many of the top training
companies, and the internal learning functions in many companies, are training
delegators and commanders, not listeners and facilitators.
I have worked with dozens of
companies that have committed publicly to innovation. They've set it as a top
priority. Yet they are totally unprepared organizationally to make good on that
because their leaders don't know how. As long as the command and control
leaders are getting the promotions, the more inclusive leaders--the ones who
actually know how to foster innovative teams--will not rise.
To deliver on innovation as a
fundamental part of how you operate, you must have leaders who know how to
foster and support creative thinking, who enable and support the right kind of
risk taking, who understand the value of ideas even if they are not their own
or they can’t personally relate to them. Finally, they need to know how to get
out of the way and let their teams innovate.
This brings me to the third point.
Shut
up and listen.
In BCG's 2013 study of the most
innovative companies, the authors conclude: "Strong innovators listen to
customers. The views of key customers play a significant role in the innovation
and new-product programs of 73 percent of strong innovators, compared with only
42 percent of weaker companies and 56 percent overall."
Although this may seem incredibly
obvious, it's not. Many companies, especially larger, more hierarchical
organizations, are simply not set up to hear the voice of the customer. In one
large health care company I advised last year, entire businesses were still
taking orders by fax. The reason? They claimed the customer had never asked
them to change it. Really?! On closer inspection, it seemed customers had
asked. They had asked their reps, who had in turn tried to pass the message up
the chain. But the reps weren't heard. The status quo continued.
There are many ways to hear the
customer. Clearly, outreach, focus groups, and market research all matter. But
some of the best customer insights are standing right in front of you, because
your employees often know what customers want. Unfortunately (see point above),
in a hierarchy-driven, Jack Welch management world, it's very hard to hear the
customer because you're not hearing your employees.
Innovation is hard. It takes
relentless focus, openness, and sometimes a little luck. But sometimes even
simple solutions can yield dividends. Whatever the investment, there's nothing
but benefit to be gained.
BY Lauren Leader-Chivée http://www.inc.com/lauren-leader-chiv%C3%A9e/3-secrets-of-innovation-that-everyone-misses.html
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