This headline does not refer to a blockbuster hit. Rather, it refers to Blockbuster, the company that owned the video rental market until it was upended by an innovative competitor, Netflix. One thing is for certain: If your company isn’t innovating, all of its products or services will eventually become commodities. Or they’ll be toppled by the next Netflix.
How, exactly, do you spark new innovation at a company? What’s more, how do you do it at an already established business? Read these innovation tips in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.
Make innovation part of everyone’s job description: The first line item on every job description should state that a primary duty is to introduce innovative ideas into the company. From the plant floor to the executive door, mandate that the entire organization offer ideas to improve products and services.
Innovation must be one of the company’s core values, so much so that it is tied to performance appraisals. Determine a means to best measure innovation in your company, and incentivize innovative thought by making it part of the performance review process. By doing so, not only do you give kudos and raises to the employees who innovate, but you also say goodbye to the ones that don’t.
Invest in innovation: Contrary to popular belief, everyone is creative. The key is to understand how to unlock that creativity. Train every employee in the principles of brainstorming and innovation. Hold an “innovation fair,” similar to a science fair. Take your employees on field trips to highly innovative companies outside of your industry.
Provide the time to innovate: It isn’t always enough to set the expectation to innovate. You must provide the time—or at least the parameters—for innovation. To really push the innovation envelope, you should encourage your employees to spend 20 percent of their time innovating and brainstorming new ideas. But if you still expect your team to accomplish the same amount of work in the remaining 80 percent, that would be unfair, and in the end, would never work. So you have to bite the bullet and hire more people to cover that 20 percent. You need to set the expectation that “thinking about things,” is really just as important as “building things.”
Provide the space to innovate: Asking employees to innovate and brainstorm without providing a space to do it in can squelch creativity. Once you’ve established the practice of innovation, devote a location within your organization where they can meet regularly and without interruption.
This can be as simple as an empty cube dedicated for innovative practices, or as involved as an offsite location with a round-the-clock focus on innovation. Above all else, you must make it abundantly clear that these spaces aren’t just for white-collar employees. They are for all employees. Allotting spaces serves two purposes: it provides an assigned area in which to innovate and it shows employees how serious your company is about the process.
Celebrate, recognize and reward innovation: Find ways to celebrate and recognize innovation every chance you get. It has a way of changing workplace culture for the better and reinforcing positive behaviors. Potential rewards include significant cash awards for innovation, professional photos taken of the team marking the achievement or even making the accomplishment public by taking out a half-page ad in the local newspaper detailing the innovation. Recognize innovative efforts every chance you get in every way you imagine.
Innovation is no longer an option—it’s a necessity. You need to surround new developments with people who believe in innovation. Otherwise, you’ll be left with those who’ll do little more than look for flaws.
Source: Steve Blue is president and CEO of Miller Ingenuity and author of the forthcoming book, American Manufacturing 2.0: What Went Wrong and How to Make It Right. As a nationally recognized business transformation expert and speaker, Blue has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur and The Wall Street Journal. He is founder and a contributor to American City Business Journal‘s “League of Extraordinary CEOs” series.
