Here is why Innovation is critical within yourself and towards your diverse teams
You must have heard this word "Innovation" a million times no matter which event you attend or be part of
Innovation is something every organization must focus and take it seriously
No body wants to stay behind let it companies or Individuals, we always aspire towards next level and the only way to move ahead is by Innovating.
Here are the Top 50 Innovative companies in the world from BCG, interestingly there are quite a few new names hitting the list and some of the companies has been part of the list for the last few years consistently like Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft and few others
While your organization will hold innovation as their key strategy, as a manager it is important to build a positive attitude towards Innovation and drive it within the teams
if you as their manager take innovation seriously definitely your team will do too.
Firstly, what does Innovation mean?
According to Wikipedia - Innovation is production or adoption, assimilation, and exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of production; and the establishment of new management systems. It is both a process and an outcome.
In simple words "an action or idea transformed to reality"
When I thought to write about this topic, I told myself what information am I going to share about Innovation today as there are so many topics around this arena
So I will share some of my experience around this topic
We never like to do the same monotonous or the repeated tasks again and again.
For example: it could be a simple excel work where you must follow 10 different steps to get the output.
I always hated these redundant steps wanted to find a way to automate it so I can focus on something more important
Coming from a non technical background its not easy to automate by yourself but definitely you can identify the repetitions and the redundant processes, upon get the support from your internal technical teams to automate them. Every fortune 500 companies will have their own technology teams to help projects or operations - this is where leveraging and building a good relationship with your internal teams will play a vital role.
With similar attitude towards process improvements, receiving positive feedback from Program managers motivated me to change not just some simple processes but share ideas to improve the overall business and build software's tools which can value to the overall business
Well, all you need is an interest to do something new, rest will follow - invest time to learn and improvize.
As a manager, you must also build the mindset with your teams which is quite a task as everybody wont be on the same page, If you keep telling your team we must innovate, you will stay where you are and will keep talking about it for the next several years without any progress.
Here is an article about how should companies overcome the innovation readiness gap - Most Innovative Companies 2021 - Understanding Innovation | BCG
Suggestions on how to build innovation within your teams
Innovation starts with yourself and your People
Building a culture within your teams to report the challenges they face while working irrespective of how big or small the problem is - this is utmost important to start with
Ensure that the issues or challenges they report are tracked, documented, reported and resolved. More importantly bring it up to your senior management on the suggestions provided by your team this builds your teams confidence. Do keep them appraised on the status
Motivate and build your teams mindset: without an clear understanding of your goals and mindset nothing can change, so open up yourself and then get your teams buy-in. Take them out for a coffee and share some of your plans, areas you want to improve and ask for suggestions.
Stay connected with your internal Technical Solutions teams as they hold the tools or resources you need to build the idea you have in mind
Consistent Process Improvement:
Spend time to analyze and understand the pain points from your customer. No one else can explain the challenges much better than your customer (read all the customer surveys you get - good or bad - you will get so many ideas from them every time you read it)
Consistently revisit your processes - discuss with your teams on the improvement areas - your team members are the one who work on them day in and out, so they will know what is good and bad in the process. Don’t judge them, understand the challenges they have while they work on these processes - you will gets tons of improvement ideas during these discussions (its important to build that comfortableness within your teams to get to this level) - don't just go once a year and expect them to open up
Identify the monotonous work you and your team do. Analyze and build a list of potential solutions you can offer.
Delegate the work but ensure to be part of this as the information you hold is critical for the idea to convert into innovation. Your inputs as manager will add lot of value especially if you know the business well. Don't expect just by delegating this to one of your SME, Team leader or Managers you can achieve innovation within your teams
Focused Value
Identify the value by improvising or innovating the activity
Showcase your teams why must you do it and the benefits you and your team will achieve through this innovation (its important to get their buy-in to support you)
Win as a team, lose as a team
According to BCG analysis reveals that focusing on deficits in five of the ten i2i readiness areas are likely to have the greatest returns: Most Innovative Companies 2021 - Understanding Innovation | BCG
Interesting articles relating to Innovation:
Conclusion
Innovation is all about converting your ideas into reality. As a manager or a leader for your team, must share the purpose of your project and your existence. This way your team will help your business evolve and more importantly build the value your customers expect
Whatever product or tool you build it will become cliché over a period of time, In order to solve that you must consistently improvize or innovate that product by replacing with a better one.
How did you build innovation within your team? please share your thoughts below
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