2 Reasons Your Organisation is Not More Innovative (and 5 Steps to Overcome Them)
/The reason your organisations is not more innovative is not:
- a shortage of ideas
- a lack of creativity
- insufficient opportunities
- poor leadership
No, usually there are a lot of ideas, your people are more creative than you think, there’s plenty of opportunities, and poor leadership is only poor because it is not strategically aligned (ok there are some other reasons too – but stick with me here).
No, the real reasons your organisation is not more innovative are usually twofold:
- There is no strategy for innovation and it gets subsumed by “business as usual”
- The ideas in your people’s heads, never get into production (see point 1)
Many clients hire me, and other consultants, to run “creativity”, or “innovation” workshops. It’s great for keeping consultants in business, but in all my years of helping organisations to be more innovative, there’s never been a shortage of ideas - the roadblock is really that there is no way to get the idea from someone’s head, and into production.
If you think your people don’t have ideas – it’s most likely they’ve never been properly encouraged. (In fairness, there are other roadblocks - but they are all things your strategy would address).
5 Steps to Developing Organisational Innovation
If you want this year to be better than last year, and you want to be more innovative, here’s where to start:
- diagnose your strengths and weakness with regard to innovation
- develop a reward and recognition system that encourages ideas
- have a clear process for ideation (download our innovation diamond –it’s free)
- have a clear process for collecting and vetting ideas
- develop a strategy to encompass all the above
If you want things to be different - then you’ll need to do something different.
If you’d like to use our online innovation diagnostic then email us at info@crispopp.com.
Need help with your strategy, or to develop an idea? Get in touch (+ 61) 0438 545 607.
