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I have seen too many business leaders say that innovation is important, but fail to take action in support of their statements. This situation confuses employees and destroys a company’s ability to create a culture of innovation. By missing out on potentially valuable ideas, these companies have difficulty distinguishing themselves in the marketplace.
Education is an important step in developing an innovation strategy for any company. This innovation education is important at all levels in the organization. To successfully create a team of people who are actively developing innovative ideas, the company’s leaders must support creative activities and understand how to encourage innovative thinking. When employees see unanimous support of innovation, and are taught how to innovate, they are excited and motivated to participate in the identification and development of innovative ideas.
A Business Week article by Stefan Lindegaard titled “Why CEOs Don’t Get Innovation” mentions a lack of education as one of the reasons CEOs don’t “get” innovation. The article identifies several reasons why CEOs don’t fully leverage innovation, including:
To start discovering and applying innovative ideas in your business, you need to begin educating everyone in your company about the benefits of innovation. Teach employees in all departments how to identify creative ideas and how those ideas can expand the business. Provide specific examples of valuable innovations (in your own business or other businesses) that show people how the innovation process operates and the benefits to the company.
To further encourage innovative thinking, managers and executives must appreciate the value of spending time brainstorming or performing other creative thinking exercises. Even though the results of these activities may not generate revenue in the current quarter, they can support the long-term growth of the company by identifying new products and improved product features. Innovative activities must be encouraged and valued by company management, even if the activities cannot be measured as easily as direct revenue or meeting project deadlines.
CEOs and other executives should set the tone for the company’s innovation strategy. Without a company-wide understanding of innovation and support of innovative activities by company leaders, many companies will merely talk about innovation without actually experiencing its benefits.