How to Improve Innovation in the Workplace
Today’s leaders find they’re dealing with more complex challenges. Challenges where one right solution isn’t the answer. Nor is trying to do it alone; innovation is a team sport requiring solid innovation skills.
Do you wish you could improve innovation at work? As leaders, we’ve all been there. Faced with a challenge, we wish for that elusive “innovative solution” to drive the breakthrough we desperately want. But those breakthroughs only happen with creative thinking.
Only some of us learn to be innovative thinkers at school. School teaches us to focus on finding the one-right-solution that will get us the best marks.
The real world doesn’t work that way.
Today’s leaders find they’re dealing with more complex challenges. Challenges where one right solution isn’t the answer. Nor is trying to do it alone; innovation is a team sport requiring solid innovation skills.
Without innovation skills, we overanalyze, run out of ideas, delay action or cause rework with the wrong solutions.
Complex challenges need multiple perspectives, an opportunity to explore many options and warrant the time to be sure you’re tackling the right problem.
So, if you’re a leader wishing you could improve innovation at work, below is my tried-and-true method for success.
Three steps to improve innovation at work
- Identify an area of your business or how your team performs where things aren’t going as well as you would like.
- Train your team on complex problem-solving so they have the tools and skills to innovate and respond to any business problem. We like FourSight® for this, and here’s why.
- Hold your team accountable using their training to ThinkUP innovative solutions to solve business problems.
When they’re done, celebrate their progress and what you learned, then go back to step one. It’s that simple. And it’s an approach backed by research and proven to get results every time.
And the side benefits?
✅ Engagement goes up
✅ Collaboration is enhanced
✅ Results improve
✅ Relationships get better
✅ Silos dissolve
✅ work gets easier
And you, as the leader, will learn to love leadership again. Promise. Stop wishing for innovation. Let’s get your team achieving more than you ever thought possible!
Need help improving innovation at work?
If you need help bringing innovation to your organization, we understand your pressures.
Let’s talk about how to get you, your teams and leaders the innovation skills and complex problem-solving training your company needs.
