{"id":87564,"date":"2022-12-27T16:14:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T20:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=87564"},"modified":"2022-12-28T16:17:03","modified_gmt":"2022-12-28T20:17:03","slug":"innovation-in-the-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/innovation-in-the-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Guide to Innovation in the Workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Are your teams stuck in the old ways? What can you, as a leader, do to encourage innovation in the workplace<\/a>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to popular misconception, innovation doesn\u2019t require special talents or genius. Everyone on your team has the potential to bring innovative ideas to the table. You, as a leader, just have to create the necessary conditions to make it happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we\u2019ll look at a few innovation strategies<\/a> you can use to spark innovation in the workplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

How Innovations Happen <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to David Epstein, the author of Range<\/em><\/a>, innovations flourish in unstructured and unconstrained environments that allow for playful thinking<\/a>. <\/strong>When professionals loosen up and temporarily abandon the need to accomplish anything serious, they often make wild breakthroughs that would never have normally been discovered. By freeing themselves from the constraints of serious work, they\u2019re more likely to explore the uncharted territory. Obviously, you need rules and direction to get most work done, but a healthy amount of playful thinking and curiosity can be incredibly valuable for triggering innovation in the workplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Nobel-winning physicist Andre Geim used to schedule \u201cFriday night experiments\u201d\u2014time dedicated to fooling around in the lab with whatever interests him, regardless if he thinks it\u2019ll amount to anything. One Friday night, he unexpectedly discovered that the water in a frog\u2019s body was magnetic enough to levitate a frog in midair. On another, he found out that Scotch tape was able to strip off extremely thin layers of graphite, directly leading him to discover how to isolate graphene, a nanomaterial that\u2019s one atom thick and two hundred times stronger than steel\u2014which won him the Nobel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create a Sense of Psychological Safety <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Innovative ideas go unexpressed when workplaces don\u2019t try to cultivate a sense of psychological safety\u2014people fear the negative consequences of being wrong, so they hesitate to speak up. In such a culture, old ways of doing things go unquestioned because people are stigmatized for challenging them. When this dynamic sets in, the workplace can become wedded to old ideas and processes that clearly aren’t working anymore, while new, innovative ideas are stifled and ignored\u2014leading the entire organization to suffer as a result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To encourage innovation in the workplace, leaders should communicate that it\u2019s okay to be wrong. Even better, they can openly share professional critiques that show their past failures. When leaders are open about their own shortcomings and how they are working to do better, it provides a powerful example of humility that gives employees the psychological safety to express their ideas without the fear of judgment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Provide People With Autonomy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In addition to creating a culture where people are comfortable expressing their ideas, leaders should give people autonomy. When people feel they have ownership of their work, their creativity blossoms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Ed Catmull (president of Pixar) owes much of the company\u2019s success to its autonomous work culture. To encourage innovation in the workplace, Catmull uses a series of routine meetings and activities through which artists can develop their projects and allows creators to choose their own projects. When giving feedback, he rarely makes any creative decisions. He says that the creators know their projects better than he does and that his suggestions would likely only be followed because he\u2019s in a position of power, not because it\u2019s the best creative choice for the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catmull\u2019s process allows creative teams<\/a> to maintain control of their projects while accessing the collective intellect of the company as a whole to improve the product and guide innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTITLE: The Culture Code
\nAUTHOR: Daniel Coyle
\nTIME: 31
\nREADS: 132
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\nBOOK_SUMMARYURL: the-culture-code-summary-daniel-coyle
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\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streamline Ideation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned, innovations tend to happen when people are able to think freely and express their ideas without the fear of judgment. Once you establish such a culture, the next step is to establish a streamlined process<\/a> to generate and evaluate a large number of innovative ideas. To this end, assemble a diverse team of employees from across different departments and from different levels of your business to brainstorm and discuss possibilities. Further, consider including people from outside your business to help stimulate innovative ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can use one of the following objectives to encourage innovation in the workplace:<\/p>\n\n\n\n