Innovation is critical for your company culture, driving your business to continuously evolve, adapt and remain relevant in the constantly changing market conditions.
Innovation goes beyond just introducing creative, fresh and novel ideas, as it is also about putting them to tangible action in creating desired value for your business.
How can you encourage innovation for your company culture?
Here are 3 key principles you can apply, using the 3 S's:
- Sharing
- Sandbox
- Support
1. Sharing
Innovation can be encouraged when your company culture fosters a collective camaraderie of sharing, especially if done cross-functionally without siloes.
This is where your people can collaboratively share ideas, feedback and candour with one another, all in the spirit of discovering the best solution forward for your company's initiatives.
Don't limit this to just within your people, as involving the sharing from your external stakeholders (e.g. customers and partners) can be useful sources of innovation for your company as well.
2. Sandbox
Consider providing your people a sandbox environment as a safe space to explore and experiment with ideas in your company.
This can range from simulations to controlled and isolated environments where ideas are tested and validated to assess its feasibility before deciding to go live and/or on a bigger scale operationally.
Innovation is not without risks, and a sandbox environment allows your company to manage the risks in a calculated way, a safe space to 'fail' as part of the learning process without the fear of making a costly mistake.
3. Support
Innovation efforts are likely to be futile without adequate support within your company culture, especially from your company's management.
Examples of support that can be provided:
- Allocation of appropriate resources and tools
- Provide learning opportunities to acquire and practice new skills
- Equitable recognition and rewards for innovation efforts
The right support empowers your people towards unlocking fresh potential in solving complex problems with innovation-driven solutions.
Concluding remarks
The practice of innovation within your company culture plays a major part in future-proofing your business from becoming obsolete and seize competitive advantage of market disruptions.
Continue to embrace innovation, your company's bridge towards continuous advancement ahead for your business.
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