Building an Innovation Culture

A few thoughts.

1. Educate people on innovation – what it is and what it is not. This education should include the difference between discovery, invention, ideas and innovation
2. If you position innovation as exploration or experimentation, people will feel more comfortable trying a few.
3. Provide some time for each person in the company to try it in any area they like, some times even outside the space the company operates in. Pick a few social innovation causes if needed.
4. Show some examples of simple, incremental innovations. If you can show case what happened in your own company or in the context of your business/industry, people can relate better.
5. Encourage ideas and recognize them in some way. While ideas are not innovation, they are a good starting point.
6. Spread the stories of innovation and how it changed something for the better – not always in terms of gains or profits but even life style improvements, less stress etc.
7. Building an innovation mindset takes time. Having an informal social network inside the company to share stories may act as a catalyst.