How can CEOs improve the innovation process in the workplace?

Innovation is a holy grail – there is a whole row devoted to it in the book store. It is an extremely complicated topic. It is clear now more than ever that companies need to stay inventive and nimble to compete.

The paradox inherent in the innovation process in organizations is that organizations are designed to produce and perform. So an organization that performs well with tight operations will be in conflict with innovation. This paradox must be recognized and dealt with; of course each organization will have to manage how to do according to their own unique culture. 

The most expedient approach is to create small offshoot businesses to test and try new ideas that are independent of the day to day operations of the main business. The next big challenge around the innovation process is the part that everyone seems to forget – that those who tend to be excellent innovators are not usually the ones who are good at implementation and execution. So the innovation team will need people who have the experience and the discipline to set up the systems that will allow a good idea to see the light of day.

Creativity and innovation in the workplace are not the same thing – CEO’s who would like to see their people be more creative will first want to ask themselves why? What would change or be better if people were more creative? There needs to be a compelling reason because when people are more creative there will naturally be more noise and more chaos in the system. Perhaps what CEO’s want is for people to take more initiative or show more ownership, or to be better problem solvers. Once the real end game has been identified, then a plan can be formulated.

Some ideas to get employees to exercise the innovation process in the workplace:

• Offer people a set amount of regular work time – like one full day per month – to work on what interests them most even if it is unrelated to their key tasks and goals.
   
• Clearly identify “the way we do things around here” and ask how things might be different if all regular constraints were removed. Ask people to challenge the most accepted truths, the ones held most dear.
   
• Ask people to think about what they might do if one of the basic rules were changed (i.e. your B2B market was all of sudden switched to a B2C one, or your target market of baby boomers were now Genexters). What might you see differently?
   
• Ask your people – and let them do this anonymously if that will get you more honesty – what the stupidest rules in the company or their department are. You might uncover some old processes that got built on instead of jettisoned.