This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Innovator’s DNA" by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Does your company budget for innovation? Are you willing to risk failure? How do you deal with mistakes?
Innovative leaders infuse their whole organizations with a commitment to innovation. Company mindsets are most effective when they’re shared among everyone. The Innovator’s DNA outlines three core tenets you can adopt to support your employees in having the courage and ability to innovate.
Continue reading to learn how to foster an innovative mindset in your organization.
#1: Prioritize Innovation Funding
To cultivate an innovative mindset in your organization, you must prioritize funding for disruptive innovation. Allocate a portion of your human and financial resources to innovation projects. Spend more money on research and development and initiate more disruptive innovation projects rather than projects that merely improve on established markets.
(Shortform note: Christensen recommends that established companies budget for multiple attempts at marketing disruptive innovations and create a separate, independent unit within the company. Separate and semi-autonomous innovation units can explore disruptive innovation without being limited by the constraints of the current business model. With a separate budget, new initiatives do not have to compete with existing projects for resources.)
#2: Make Everyone an Innovator
To foster an innovative mindset, you must promote the belief that innovation is everyone’s job. You can encourage everyone in your organization to be disruptive innovators by creating a work atmosphere that doesn’t penalize people for experimenting and making mistakes. Acknowledge and praise people for using Innovation skills, actively solicit ideas from your team, and make it easy for them to spend time developing breakthrough ideas.
#3: Embrace Risk & Mistakes
One more thing you must do to encourage an innovative mindset in your organization is to embrace risk and expect mistakes. Innovative companies are willing to take risks and make mistakes because they realize that disruptive innovation requires experimentation and, often, failure. The authors explain that you can take risks confidently by hiring the right people and developing innovation skills in your employees—putting the right people in front of problems reduces the chances of failure.
(Shortform note: Welcoming experimentation and encouraging people to take risks are examples of building what experts call psychological safety in the workplace. When employees fear penalization for making mistakes or failing, it’s biologically more difficult for them to think critically and creatively, problem-solve, and innovate. Additional ways to foster psychological safety in an organization include encouraging collaboration, building up employees’ confidence with positive feedback, and requesting feedback from them for ways you can improve.)
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- The five key skills that are shared by the world's innovation leaders
- Why innovation in business is so important
- How to sustain innovative organizations and teams long term
