How You Ask for Innovation Matters

static1.squarespaceSix Considerations for Inclusive Innovation

The Wall Street Journal published an article this week, Why Innovation is a Team Sport

It reveals a broad based study on innovation done by the research firm Great Place to Work. You can download the entire white paper at Great Places website. Nicely done survey GP2W!

Essentially, the survey says that companies that are more broad-based and inclusive in innovation have better growth prospects. Across industry sectors and sizes of companies, those who include more of their people in innovation efforts tend to do better.

Where people feel included, notice the word “feel” — they also worker harder and longer.

Who doesn’t want more growth potential and harder working, more involved, people?

YES! AND…

This is a great study to support broader innovation efforts. I’ve said for some time that innovation should be everyone’s job, and it’s not just for R&D or product development teams. Love that this survey quantifies it in a scientific way.

AND… If you’re going to broaden your innovation efforts, please, take note:

How you ask for innovation at your company matters. 

  1. If you ask for innovation ideas in an idea campaign, make it clear to all that the effort has top level support. It would be really great if this were actually true and management communicated enthusiasm.
  2. Present a focused challenge question. For example: “How Might We improve our customer service experience?” As opposed to “How Might we improve?” Do not ask a generic question. General questions, get a lot of useless answers and can devolve into online gripe sessions. Problem framing is an art form, work that challenge question before putting it forward.
  3. Be prepared to process a lot of ideas. This takes resources, make sure they are in place Before you make your ask.
  4. Provide feedback, as you go, to the ideation, steer it a bit. Ask for more ideas of certain kinds, less of others, etc. Yes, these open sessions need to be facilitated. If necessary, modify your question to make it more specific if you’re not getting interesting ideas.
  5. Once done and the ideas are processed, communicate what happened. “We received 630 ideas from 87 people.” Point out those ideas that are winners or will be resourced for more development. If even one idea is shown to have made the cut, you’re communicating that this was not a waste of time. Take a pause between this session and the next, give people a chance to reflect on what happened.
  6. Consider tracking ideas, as in, who contributed, and the level of contribution. If people know this is being done you will broaden participation.

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Posted in Guerilla Innovation, Idea Generation, Idea Management, Innovation, Intrapreneurship, Open Innovation, Teams