Leadership - Promoting Innovation

Innovate - “act of introducing something new” or “new way of doing something”

Most people have trouble with change particularly radical change:

• “Don’t rock the boat”
• “Grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence”
• “Better the devil you know”
• “Stay low and your head won’t get chopped off”
• “He/She’s a creature of habit”
• “That’s not how we do it here…”

Managers have problems with change for a variety of good human reasons:

• Difficulty in dealing with conflict with associates
• Trouble communicating bad news
• Self- interested and desire to know how to “fit in” with change
• Stress about job and financial security
• Does not want to risk career

As a leader, one of your most important skills is to innovate within your organization through the development of a business culture that produces success today, allows improvement for tomorrow, and achieves the vision in the long term.

Eliminate routines (waste) that are non-productive legacy practices with no value added to the customer or organization. Eliminate the nay saying culture of “That’s not how we do it here…” or “He/she is a creature of habit”

Provide a formal process to encourage innovation and continuous improvement. Allow the leaps in progress through strategic initiative deployment while fostering a lean continuous improvement culture. Provide a culture of continuous improvement where the status quo is not good enough and associates do not seek the comfortable excuse “Grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence” or “Better the devil you know”

Motivate the team associates to be risk takers and step out of their paradigms to make change happen effectively. Excite the associates to take the initiative and not lie in fear of having to “Stay low and your head won’t get chopped off”

Develop an organizational culture where all levels of associate and decision makers understand and pass on not only the standard operating process, but more importantly test new ideas. The team welcomes and embraces change and innovation. Challenge all the associates in the organization to innovate and challenge those who say “Don’t rock the boat”

Envision a culture of innovation with continuous improvement punctuated by leaps of success:

- promotes new fresh processes and ideas over legacy solutions (Eliminate)
- encourages a culture of continuous improvement and innovation (Provide)
- empowers the associates to be risk takers and step out of their paradigms (Motivate)
- promotes creativity and initiative to test new ideas (Develop)

Deploy a culture where to move forward the organization is “willing to break a few eggs to make an omelet“

My final thought - Create an innovative culture promoting innovation and continuous improvement. Revitalize an organization through lean business disciplines of continuous improvement combined with a strategic vision in a team environment.

“You cannot cross over every obstacle in small steps, sometimes you need to make a big leap.”