How do you enable innovation in your organisation?

The 21st Century Organisation is a learning organisation: innovation isn’t something it does, it’s who it is. But the presence of innovation is not a natural progression; it needs deliberate pursuit. Here are some things you can do to enable it in your organisation:

Education

• Educate employees on the whys and hows of innovation
• Help corporate outliers/heretics/early adopters communicate within the management norm: managers can avoid innovation if they can’t relate to the language and behaviour of its advocates
• Reduce fear of the unfamiliar - celebrate the new and different

Structure

• Create practice fields - innovation needs trial and error
• Open up slack in the system: hyper-efficiency kills innovation
• Become more open, don’t lock it down - share what you know and look beyond your traditional boundaries
• Increase employee freedom and sense of ownership

Culture

• Work on your personal mastery - the more of a learner you are, the more you realise what you don’t know or can’t control
• Ensure there’s a shared vision
• Regularly challenge the status quo mindset to break down mental models

Resourcing

• Multiply the funding routes away from vertical (senior) approval so that no one person (boss, CFO etc.) can kill the progression from idea to innovation
• Consider overweighting decision making groups with people new to the industry/scenario
• Give people room to become involved - today’s employee cannot be expected to “add” innovation to an already loaded schedule

"Not one company in a hundred has made innovation everyone’s job, every day."

Gary Hamel