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Why Is the Recession a Great Time to Kindle Grassroots Innovation?
February 13, 2009
If you think that innovation projects should be shelved to cut costs in these challenging economic times, you'd be very wrong. Quite the opposite is true. Now is the best time to grow innovation in your employees—and you might be surprised at the outcomes.
By Arupa Tesolin
Innovation is the way out of recession and into a more sustainable economy. With the right attitude, these challenging times provide all organizations an opportunity to rally employees together and encourage them to invest more of their creative energy. But organizations don’t innovate…People do. In fact, some of the best kinds of innovation come from the "Grassroots," the people within your organization—your employees, clients and often your extended network of suppliers and associates. And the good news id that innovation does not need to be complex or costly. (Remember, even Microsoft was started in a garage.)
Seeding Innovation
Any company can find ways to make innovation pay off. Both small and large companies can look to their employees, clients and beyond for ways to be more innovative that add value to what they do. Investments in innovation, training and productivity now will recoup their investment and increase profits later.
Executive leaders and employees need to have a way to challenge the "idea orthodoxy" prevalent at many large companies. Those who are successful at doing this today will become the economic and brand leaders of tomorrow. Commanding an innovation destiny requires industry leaders and their employees to take both business innovation and personal creative power to the next level.
This is the right time to turn employees into innovators and help them learn to master new creative thinking skills, like how to create from scratch, think creatively, see things differently, be more intuitive, communicate ideas better and to appreciate the benefits of both thought and cultural diversity. When people think differently, learn and try out new things, they have more energy and are more alert, engaged and responsive to clients and colleagues. Usually they're also having more fun.
Innovation Is a Team Player
Innovation rarely happens alone. Innovative companies often have a cadre of innovative minds outside their own organization. I spoke recently on innovation at the World Automotive News Congress along with Dr. Andrew Brown Jr., Executive Director of Innovation at Delphi Corporation, which developed the innovative On-Star communication system for General Motors Corporation. He identified that for every internal employee there were about 200 external sources. Innovative brand leader Proctor & Gamble, he explained, has about 500 external sources per employee.
There are a million ways to innovate and every organization can find ways to make innovation profitable and generate an ROI—return on imagination. The important thing is not to innovate for innovation's sake, but to plan innovation in a way that offers the greatest value to your product, services or brand.
So where to start? Look at your business cycle from start to finish. Look at the lifecycle of your interaction with clients or customers. Every point along that process provides an opportunity to innovate.
1. Identify high return opportunities to innovate in key growth areas. Conduct an innovation survey that reviews all aspects of your business from recruiting, customer satisfaction, sales processes, new product and service development or other areas.
2. Create an innovation culture. Support trying something new. Empower your employees, involve them and give them a way to challenge old ways of doing things in favor of better ways.
3. Develop creative skills in employees, and apply them to your business in key areas.
4. Increase employee productivity and proficiency, starting with the highest impact functions. Implement learning paths or fast-track training processes that increase proficiency and performance.
5. Measure results of innovation. Develop reliable metrics that are useful for planning future innovation.
6. Hire creative minds outside your organization to find people who think differently and can add value to innovation.
Be an Innovation Master
How do you know when something is innovative, rather than just good business? Innovation attracts attention. It shows up differently. It creates energy because it’s interesting, unusual, or brings an element of surprise, evokes positive emotion, joy or reveals an unexpected connection with something else.
We are only at dawn of the "Innovation Age." The road to tomorrow will be paved with the results of the ideas that we dream and apply today. It's an exciting time. I can't wait to see what we’re able to do.
Editor's Note: Read all of the strategies and best practices from Incentive's Survival Guide at www.incentivemag.com/survivalguide. New articles daily!
Arupa Tesolin, author of the international books Ting! and Spark, is a speaker, trainer and thought leader in business intuition and grassroots innovation. She owns Intuita (www.intuita.com), a learning and consulting firm. Contact her at inquiries@intuita.com or 905.271.7272.
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