By: Idea Champions

 

Whet the Appetite: Stimulate your workforce’s innate hunger to innovate. Invite people already inspired to innovate to be part of your core team. Communicate and celebrate all in-house innovation successes. Lead a series of senior team “innovation strategy & alignment” sessions. Create a business case for why innovation is so crucial to your company’s success. Then present it at a series of well-designed town meetings. Stake and Prepare the Ground: Clarify the scope of your effort… increase organizational readiness. Ask your senior team to prioritize the company’s top five innovation needs. Quantify the cost/benefits of innovating in these top five fields. Ask middle managers what they can do to establish a culture of innovation. Begin researching idea management software options. Find the Seeds: Locate powerful, new ideas – the fuzzy front end of innovation. Ask your direct reports for three well-developed ideas per week. Re-state your company’s biggest challenges in the form of questions beginning with the words “How can we?” Identify ten already scheduled meetings and dedicate at least 25% of these meetings to idea generation. Invite selected customers/clients to a series of brainstorming sessions. Plant the Seeds: Improve the process for new ideas being pitched and taking root. Identify best “idea pitching” practices and spread the word.. Identify skillful, in-house communicators and ask them to mentor others. Ask employees what they need from management in order to make the company’s idea pitching process more inviting, humane, and effective. Train your workforce in the art and science of making skillful presentations. Fence the Garden: Protect aspiring innovators from naysayers and idea killers. Eliminate all unnecessary innovation metrics and bureaucratic protocols. Identify your company’s biggest naysayers and serve them with an “aspiring innovators restraining order.” Request all naysayers to seek you out (instead of aspiring innovators) with their concerns about experimental projects and pilot programs. Provide safe havens for aspiring innovators to collaborate on new projects away from the scrutiny and micromanagement of in-house skeptics.. Tend New Growth: Find healthy ways to nurture the development of new possibilities. Create “virtual garages” for employees to work on promising, new ventures. Ask managers to spend more time giving feedback to aspiring innovators. Make “innovation slush funds” available to project champions. Establish well-placed “innovation spaces” to encourage creative thinking, collaboration, and cross-functional brainstorming. Thin and Transplant: Evaluate, simplify & decide… know what to focus on & what to defer. Identify and communicate the criteria by which new ideas will be evaluated. Identify the resources available to support new growth initiatives. Establish “greenhouse environments” that will enable your company to nurture the growth of new ideas and pilot programs. Celebrate the Harvest: Acknowledge the bounty and the gardeners…express appreciation. Take some time this week to individually acknowledge each of your direct reports for the efforts they’ve made this year. Ask your direct reports to take some time this week to acknowledge all of their direct reports. Dedicate some time at your next already scheduled meeting to acknowledge a team or department for their collective efforts to innovate. Put together a team of people to schedule, plan, and facilitate an event to celebrate your company’s “innovation harvest” for the year.