50 maal innovatief

Nieuws | de redactie
24 december 2009 | Voor onder de boom! 50 manieren om in je werk, organisatie, onderzoek of bedrijf een 'innovatiecultuur' te vestigen: "5. Make new mistakes." En nog veel meer.....

1. Remember that innovation requires no fixedrules or templates — only guiding principles. Creating a moreinnovative culture is an organic and creative act.

2. Wherever you can, whenever you can, alwaysdrive fear out of the workplace. Fear is “Public Enemy #1” of aninnovative culture.

3. Have more fun. If you’re not having fun (orat least enjoying the process) something is off.

4. Always question authority, especially theauthority of your own longstanding beliefs.

5. Make new mistakes.

6. As far as the future is concerned, don’tspeculate on what might happen, but imagine what youcan make happen.

7. Increase the visual stimuli of yourorganization’s physical space. Replace gray and white walls withcolor. Add inspiring photos and art, especially visuals thatinspire people to think differently. Reconfigure space wheneverpossible.

8. Help people broaden their perspective bycreating diverse teams and rotating employees into new projects –especially ones they are fascinated by.

9. Ask questions about everything. After askingquestions, ask different questions. After asking differentquestions, ask them in a different way.

10. Ensure a high level of personal freedom andtrust. Provide more time for people to pursue new ideas andinnovations.

11. Encourage everyone to communicate. Provideuser-friendly systems to make this happen.

12. Instead of seeing creativity training as away to pour knowledge into people’s heads, see it as a way to grindnew glasses for people so they can see the world in a differentway.

13. Learn to tolerate ambiguity and cope withsoft data. It is impossible to get all the facts about anything.”Not everything that counts can be counted. Not everything that canbe counted counts,” said Einstein.

14. Embrace and celebrate failure. 50 to 70 percent of all new product innovations fail at even the mostsuccessful companies. The main difference between companies whosucceed at innovation and those who don’t isn’t their rate ofsuccess — it’s the fact that successful companies have a LOT ofideas, pilots, and product innovations in the pipeline.

15. Notice innovation efforts. Nurture themwherever they crop up. Reward them.

16. When you’re promoting innovation in-house,always promote the benefits of a new idea or project, notthe features.

17. Don’t focus so much on taking risks, perse, but on taking the risks OUT of big and bold ideas.

18. Encourage people to get out of theiroffices and silos. Encourage people to meet informally, one-on-one,and in small groups.

19. Think long term. Since the averagesuccessful “spin-off” takes about 7.5 years, the commitment toinnovation initiatives need to be well beyond “next quarter.”

20. Create a portfolio of opportunities:short-term, long-term, incremental, and discontinuous. Just like aninvestment portfolio, balance is critical.

21. Involve as many people as you can in thedevelopment of your innovation initiative so you get upfrontbuy-in. This is the “go-slow now to go-fast later” approach. (Theopposite approach of having a few people go off to a desert islandand come back with their concept is almost always doomed tofailure).

22. Improve the way brainstorming sessions andmeetings are facilitated in your organization. Create higherstandards and practices.

23. Make sure people are working on the rightissues. Identify specific business challenges to focus on. Be ableto frame these issues as questions that start with the words, “Howcan we?”

24. Communicate, communicate, communicate,communicate, communicate and then communicate again. Deliver eachimportant message at least six times.

25. Select and install idea management softwarefor your intranet. (Or, if you’ve got an intranet and certaindirectories available to everyone, set up your own ideadepository/database and make it as interactive as you want).

26. Don’t focus on growth. Growth is a productof successful innovation. Focus on the process of becoming adept attaking ideas from the generation stage to the marketplace.

27. Make customers your innovation partners,while realizing that customers are often limited to incrementalinnovations, not breakthrough ones.

28. Understand that the best innovations areinitiated by individuals acting on their own at the periphery ofyour organization. Don’t make your innovation processes so rigidthat they get in the way of informal and spontaneous innovationefforts. Build flexibility into your design. Think”self-organizing” innovation, not “command and control”innovation.

29. Find new ways to capture learningsthroughout your organization and new ways to share these learningswith everyone. Use real-life stories to transfer the learnings.

30. Stimulate interaction between segments ofthe company that traditionally don’t connect or collaborate witheach other.

31. Develop a process of trying out newconcepts quickly and on the cheap. Learn quickly what’s working andwhat’s not.

32. Avoid analysis paralysis. Chaotic action ispreferable to orderly inaction.

33. Before reaching closure on any course ofaction, seek alternatives. Make it a discipline to seek the ideaafter the “best” idea emerges.

34. Know that attacking costs as a root problemsolves nothing. Unreasonable costs are almost always a sign of moreprofound problems (e.g. inefficient structures, processes ortraining).

35. A great source of new ideas are people thatare new to the company. Get new hires together and tap theirbrainpower and imagination.

36. Get customer feedback before committingresources to a product’s development.

37. Seek diversity of viewpoints. Get peopletogether across functions. A diversity of views sparks more thanconflict — it sparks innovation.

38. Invite outside partners early on whenexploring new opportunities. Find ways for your company to partnerwith others and actively share ideas, technologies, and othercapabilities.

39. Avoid extreme time pressures.

40. Don’t make the center of your efforts tohelp people be more creative a physical “creativity center.” Foldyour innovation resources into your business units.

41. Don’t make innovation the responsibility ofa few. Make innovation the responsibility of each and everyemployee with performance goals for each and every functionalarea.

42. Give your people specific, compelling, andmeasurable innovation goals.

43. Try to get as much buy-in and support fromsenior leadership as you can while realizing that true change NEVERstarts at the top. How often does the revolution start with theKing?

44. Realize that “resource allocation” is thelast bastion of Soviet-style central planning. Think of newinnovation opportunities as “resource attractors.”

45. Pay particular attention to alignment.Ensure that the interests and actions of all employees are directedtoward key company goals, so that any employee will recognize andrespond positively to a potentially useful idea.

46. Reward collective, not only individualsuccesses, but also maintain clear individual accountabilities andkeep innovation heroes visible.

47. Do your best to ensure that linearprocesses give way to networks of collaboration.

48. Remove whatever organizational obstaclesare in the way of people communicating bold, new ideas to topmanagement.

49. Systematize. Find problems (not only withproducts, but with processes, customer service, and businessmodels) and solve them.

50. Drive authority downwards. Make decisionsquickly at the lowest level possible.

Met dank aan Mitch Ditkoff van Ideachampions: www.ideachampions.com/weblogs


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