Council Post: Four Not-So-Obvious Ways To Foster Innovation In The IT Workplace

The information technology industry is known for promoting strong cultures of innovation in which employees can participate in a wild assortment of programs and extracurricular activities. Nonetheless, I’ve seen through my time as a leader in the space that it is not uncommon for IT leaders to focus a bit too much on all those amazing fun-workspace strategies and forget a few of lessons from Innovation 101.

Whether you are part of a large organization or a small startup, there are many basic things you can do — and stop doing — to inspire the people working with you. Here are a few ways to get you started:

Get the best out of everyone.

First of all, be sure to know what is happening with everyone working in-house. If you think that the people already in your company are not “innovative enough,” there is a massive chance you are totally wrong. People are imaginative and curiosity-driven by nature, even more in a field as up-to-the-minute as IT. The real challenge lies in providing the right type of encouragement.

The truth is that employees often encounter some form of passive resistance to new ideas. To overcome this, it is necessary to start a flow. From top to bottom, every leader must facilitate opportunities for people to share ideas. Program brainstorming sessions, and embrace the uses of collaborative software — and encourage all types of questions.

Make sure to set common goals that are easy to understand, and try not to depend too much on hierarchies for communication. Remember, successful leaders drive innovation via their people. As the saying goes, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”

Give value back.

Recognizing the value of each person’s work is crucial. When someone puts time and effort into a task, letting them know the value of their actions can be extremely rewarding. Phrases like, “Good work!” or “Great idea!” actually have a bigger effect on people than you might think.

In the same way, be sure to trust your team, and give them the chance to give trust back. Encourage participation and socialization. Celebrate cultural differences, Promote public channels and activities for communication. Most importantly, listen. Talking and giving feedback is the best way to build transparency and a trusting environment.

Feeling encouraged, challenged and empowered are the key ingredients to spread the seeds for innovation. If employees feel like there is no reason to participate, many just won’t do it. Be transparent, and let them know not only that everyone can help, but also how they can help.

Avoid the benchmarking curse.

While it is natural to benchmark your competition and try to implement those amazing fun-workspace strategies we talked about, it can be easy to fall on the so-called benchmarking curse. In his book Unlocking Creativity, Michael Roberto explained that the benchmarking curse is when companies fall into a habit of observing and copying competitors (and doing so poorly much of the time); ergo, you could see poor innovation.

The best approach to benchmarking is in adaptation: Learn about other ideas, and make them your own. The secret to avoiding the curse? Go broad. Don’t just look at your direct competition or even just your industry. Try to learn from unrelated industries and even organizations in other countries. This will make it hard to copy because contexts will be just too different.

And if you are bold enough, you can also look at your competition and ask yourself the question: What would happen if we were to do the opposite? Try to think of a grocery store where nothing is ever on sale — where there are no loyalty cards, no coupons, few branded items and no self-checkouts. If you think people wouldn’t buy their groceries there, you would be wrong. Trader Joe’s did exactly that, and they’re one of the top chains in their industry.

Keep track of what you do.

Imagine a marketing executive saying, “We know how much the last ad campaign cost, and we know what we did, but we haven’t checked if we are selling more.” That’d be crazy, right? Measuring the results of your efforts is certainly invaluable, yet it is still a practice left aside more often than not.

Although it can be hard to measure something as intangible as an innovative culture, there are definitely a few questions that can get you started. Are people participating? What have you gotten out of the brainstorming sessions? Do employees feel heard? What is the meaning of innovation for each person in the company?

Even if nothing works, try to isolate the particular details of your organization’s strategy, and build a custom approach to innovation metrics from there.

Summing It All Up

Building and maintaining a culture of innovation comes with many challenges, especially because every company’s core culture is inherently different. This means that however you decide to nurture innovation in your company, you will be cultivating a one-of-a-kind system.

In the end, true innovation requires action, so be prepared not just to encourage chatter, but to provide adequate support to worthwhile ideas. No matter where you are on your road to a healthy innovative culture, know that there is no scarcity of IT professionals full of ideas and passion projects. Leverage them, and the results will most likely surprise you.