There is constant talk about how important innovation is. Many entrepreneurs agree that for a business to have optimum performance, there is the need to incorporate innovative strategies and capacities. Organisations, enterprises, hubs, know this to be true so, getting them to believe it is not an issue as much as getting them to actually innovate.
For an organisation to be innovative, there must be a balance of key characteristics and behaviours that every team needs to exhibit. This is where Innovation Culture comes in. There is the need to build innovative cultures across organisations that will encourage new ways of doing things, spark the interest of team members to aspire for more knowledge, and ease the barriers to creativity.
In this post, we will be explaining the importance of imbibing the innovation culture. We would also be giving practical suggestions that will help create a sustainable innovation-oriented culture within our hubs.
But first, let’s get to understanding Innovation.
The Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (Iriss) defines innovation as challenging the status quo; introducing new ideas, new ways of looking at things, and new ways of working that are different from what existed before.
It’s no secret that finding new ways of doing things can be a little difficult, even for some already established businesses. One reason for this is because they are more routine executors than innovators; as such, they find it hard to change their processes.
The good news is that there are a few approaches that can help transition your organisation from traditional/routine ways of doing things to more innovative approaches which will elevate business productivity to a whole new level.
3 Ways You Can Develop New Ideas
Open Innovation: With this approach, you can support ideas from other hubs and partner with them by strategizing or articulating resources with them. This most often leads to more ideas outside of the initial ideas you’re supporting.
Design Thinking: This approach involves research on real experiences that basically starts with investigating problems and trying to find solutions to them through an analysis of the information gathered. The ability to understand and share in the reality of the situation is what fuels the development of ideas.
Systems Thinking: Using our hub ecosystem as a case study, there are a few problems we all share. Understanding how we all interrelate regarding structures and processes can get you to consider what changes are needed, what solutions will really impact the other hubs, and what your hub can do about it.
Creating a foundation for your hub that enables it to innovate again and again is vital to maintaining sustainability and respect in the ecosystem. You can do this by inculcating an innovative culture among the teams.
According to Dr. Jens-Uwe Meyer, innovation culture is the social environment that enables staff members to develop ideas and implement innovations.
An organization whose successful outputs thrive on an innovative culture will undoubtedly result in the consistent development of new ideas for improvements, better products and services, and a complete digital transformation.
Granted, there may be a few misconceptions about innovative culture because of the freedom and fun associated with it. While it allows room for creativity, empathy, and freedom, it requires a strong dose of discipline and accountability.
Achieving an innovation culture in your hub will definitely be challenging and maybe take longer than you expect, but these few suggestions can help you get there.
- Try changing the daily hub routine periodically.
- Host strategy sessions that are focused on developing new product ideas, and new ways of doing things.
- Ask thought-provoking questions during meetings, this will push your team to think regularly about what can be improved on or changed.
- Host team-building functions, and once in a while, get clients or other external parties to join. They tend to bring in different perspectives.
- Get your team acquainted with Innovative software technologies, to help connect their minds and build a trail of networking within the hub.
- Seek to always hire people with an innovative mindset and creative thinkers from diverse backgrounds.