“Innovate Every Day” Matters Most
People like to say “Change is inevitable.” But that’s not exactly true. Indeed, change comes as a result of intention, effort, and action. And Innovation demands all three – it won’t happen by itself.
As many employees gear up to go back to the workplace at least part-time, we need to be able to innovate on a daily basis. The world of work has changed radically, and the biggest innovation may be in the workplace itself. Survey after survey shows that making innovation part of your teams’ daily job is the best way to drive engagement. So here are five easy ways to get your team to innovate every day.
1. Work From Home Even at the Office
Add elements to your environment that make you feel at home. Even if you have to work in the office, you can still feel like you are WFH by putting up the same objects you would have in your home office. It doesn’t have to just be pictures of your family. Bring your favorite coffee cup, a small ceramic statuette, or a potted air plant. Even better, get to know what your team members would love to have and bring those items along to the boardroom for meetings. Innovation Minds’ Innovator Profiles can help you with this. Because we help you get to know your team members in depth.
2. Build Great Teams
Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Working with colleagues who make you feel comfortable allows you to actually look forward to going to work every day. And that makes you want to share ideas and get excited about hearing them from others. Using profiling such as we do on our platform to help you figure out who goes together best can multiply results in leaps and bounds. As our founder Bala likes to say: 1 + 1 can equal 11!
3. Think Small
Innovation often fails because of ambition. Yes, trying too hard to do too much too soon often leads to nothing getting done at all. Small goals take less time to complete and can be rewarded in smaller ways immediately. This is why we practice Innovation At the Edge – innovating in small, simple ways every day without putting long, complicated plans in place. In fact, it turns out that “small” tasks can have a huge impact.
4. Experiment Without Fear of Change
One of the best ways to stifle innovation is to criticize things too quickly. And this applies just as much to your own internal dialogue as to team management. Thus, make it a point to listen to your colleagues when they come with new ideas, no matter what your first thoughts are. Our Challenges and Ideas platform allows new ideas to be shared in an easy and dynamic way.
5. Relax
Turn your phone off for an hour a day. Meditate. Take a twenty minute walk around the block. Eat lunch outside in the sunshine, not at your desk. In short, give your busy mind a break. Instead of stopping to think, taking time to stop thinking maximizes creativity.
By Michael Lee, SVP of Strategy and Marketing, Innovation Minds
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