Fostering Innovation Through Risk

By Megan Martin

Is innovation something that your organization embraces and encourages, or are creative ideas dismissed in favor of doing what has worked for years? If you don’t consider your organization an innovator in your industry, it’s also likely that you aren’t seeing the success that you once did. Fostering innovation in your workplace can help take your company to the next level.

According to Shelley Mika’s Gallup Management Journal article “The Four Drivers of Innovation,” “if a company keeps offering the same product, a rival can easily race past with a better one. And yet another competitor will blow them both out of the water when it invents something altogether different and better -- something innovative. To remain competitive, companies must consider how to find and keep visionary leaders and how to foster innovation and creativity in their employees.”

Aside from the progress that can happen when you create an innovative work environment, encouraging employees’ creativity leads to happier, more engaged employees who are loyal to the organization.

Organizations have different ideas about what it means to be innovative, and while many companies claim innovation in their mission statement, the reality is often that management really wants things to be done as they always have.

If you want to be an innovator, you need to communicate that to employees. Before you ask employees to be creative, make sure you mean it.

If you’re ready to take the leap and start creating a more innovative organization, here are some ways to get started.

Create an Innovative Environment
An organization’s physical environment is a reflection of its culture and values. If your office is monochromatic, with employees hiding in their cubes for most of the day working in isolation, it’s time to think about how much your office environment can impact creative thinking.

According to Scott D. Williams, Ph.D. and Director of the Center for Innovation Management at Wright State University, “There are things managers can do to create the climate for creativity that don't involve directly interacting with their staff.  The right organizational culture, resources available for experimentation, collaboration in work groups, and interesting work help create the ideal context for employee creativity.”

Take the Googleplex, Google’s corporate headquarters in Mountain View California: as soon as you step foot inside, you’ll see evidence of an innovative attitude. Google has all but done away with isolated cubes or one-person offices: most Googlers share offices with others to encourage idea-sharing and collaboration.

Take a walk around and you’ll find employees playing foosball, pool, volleyball or even the piano throughout their work days. Even the break room offers more than a pot of stale coffee: it’s is stocked with 100 varieties of snacks and drinks. The Googleplex is designed with high ceilings and lots of windows to let in natural light. Although it’s a huge campus, bicycles and Segways are offered so that employees can easily commute to and from meetings.

While you may not have the funds or space to completely renovate your office space, there are things you can do to make the environment less predictable and more inspiring. Simply adding plants, having lunchtime barbeques in the back parking lot, or installing a ping pong table can help employees build relationships with their co-workers that foster collaboration and innovation. Allow employees to leave the office in order to brainstorm ideas outdoors or elsewhere. Offering flexible work schedules and unique rewards for creative leadership can transform a stale and predictable office into one that shows it values innovation.

Amp Up Employee Engagement
Fifty years ago, employees wanted stability: good pay and good benefits were enough to keep people around. Today’s workforce, however, wants more. Generation X and Y workers demand more flexibility and satisfaction from their positions and are unafraid to look elsewhere if their needs are not being met. A key part of satisfaction is the belief among workers that creativity is being encouraged and harnessed.

According to Gallup, although nearly 90% of American workers believe they are creative, less than two thirds believe that they are using their creativity on the job. A third of these would be willing to take a lower-paying job in order to work for an organization that would utilize their creativity. What’s more, while we know that employee engagement is a key component of company success, the most engaged employees feel that their position encourages creative ideas, that they have colleagues at work to share these ideas with, and that they are inspired by their colleagues’ creativity.

Ask employees for their creative input on projects related to their expertise on a regular basis. Ask how projects could be improved, or how they might handle a specific issue the organization is encountering. Not only will this make them feel that their creativity is being valued, but it will also help encourage more innovative projects and solutions.

Other ways to encourage creativity are giving employees information on new ways of doing things. If employees don’t have a model for what innovation means, it will be difficult for them to think bigger. Look for stories of innovative success about other companies in newspapers, business publications and elsewhere and distribute them to employees. Have frequent discussions about other companies’ outside-the-box initiatives. If you have the funds, send employees to a creativity seminar or invite a speaker to come in and work with employees for a day. Just make sure you attend as well and use what you learned to enhance your workplace.

Finally, encourage collaborations among team members. Innovative ideas don’t happen alone in a cubicle: they happen through group conversations. Hold brainstorming sessions once a week where employees bring in suggestions for how to transform and improve the usual processes.

Encourage Experimentation
Williams says that one of the most crucial aspects of fostering innovation is to encourage experimentation. He notes: “Experimentation is resource intensive.  To promote creativity, organizations should permit funds, materials, facilities, and the time needed for experimenting with new ideas.  Time to reflect and be imaginative is essential to creativity.  Research has found that pressures to be productive reduce creativity.”

Give employees the time and resources to work on new ideas well in advance of deadlines. Offer opportunities for collaboration between departments or teams in your organization to reduce stress and bring more strong ideas to the table.

Remember that if your organization consistently avoids risk, you’re also avoiding the potential fruits of creativity.

Be a Standout Mentor
While you may have many creative types in your workplace, even the most innovative among us need leadership and guidance. According to Mika, “Super mentors inspire their protégés and help them connect with the people who can couple action with their ideas -- as some of the best managers do.”

Be a leader who is open to employees’ new ideas. Even if a new idea isn’t practical, think about how you can adapt it rather than simply offering criticism that will discourage creative behaviors. Be vocal in your support of employees’ new ideas.

One of the most important abilities managers must have is the skills to transform ideas into actual innovative practices. When faced with the prospect of taking risks and doing things in a completely new way, even the most creative employees may become scared of change, or that their ideas will fail.

According to Williams, “Transformational leaders have the ability to transform their organizations and their followers.  They're able to motivate their followers to give extra effort and to confidently venture into unfamiliar territory.  Transformational leaders can even shape the values of their followers.” Be the kind of leader who holds high expectations, believes your team can reach them, and is enthusiastic about reaching that goal.

Remember: it’s never too late to start fostering innovation in your organization. After all, a new idea is born every second.

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