Building a climate for innovation

With the global economy still very fragile, driving innovation is proving particularly difficult. Many organisations are simply working to keep their heads above water and so creating a culture of innovation can often be put on the back burner.

However, now more than ever, companies need to adapt and become more innovative, more quickly, in order to be successful and meet the changing demands of today’s business environment,

No matter the size of your company or the sector you work in, innovation shouldn’t be ignored as it can significantly help a growing business. Long-term survival – and success – depends on it, but with many companies taking a short-term focus, great innovation can be made difficult.   

You can create both a culture and a climate of innovation. Culture extends across your entire organisation. Climates of innovation can be created by leaders in each part of your organisation. Leaders at all levels can manage the complexity of total organisational innovation by the way they lead their people.

Tip 1: Make innovation a priority

Make innovation part of your vision and strategy. But don’t just leave it there - communicate clearly across the organisation that innovation is critical to success. A plan should be developed that outlines the processes, procedures and behaviours to ensure that support is provided for innovative ideas to be successful.

Tip 2: A customers view

It’s important to encourage leaders and employees to view your organisation through your customers’ eyes. Challenge assumptions through customer meetings, competitive analysis, industry events and awareness of how the wider public perceives you. Use this improved awareness to respond to customer needs in new and creative ways.

Tip 3: Generate ideas throughout the organisation

Innovation should come throughout the organisation. Get employees to develop new ideas and use their own initiative through empowerment and incentivising. Set objectives and goals to reach the new targets and deliver a clear sense that there is a new way of doing things.

Tip 4: Identify the big levers to pull

Innovation in most organisations is driven by clear ‘levers’. These might be finance, core processes or product performance. These big levers accelerate the innovation process, so define what they are and focus on them to drive innovation.

Tip 5: Create an open culture

Fear creates a destructive block for communicating new innovative ideas. The most critical factor in driving out fear is the behaviour of leaders. Encourage leaders to create an open, supportive and trusting culture where risks can be taken and boundaries explored. With the aim of developing mutual respect through both team and leadership learning and accepting some displays vulnerability.

Tip 6: Create an environment of trust

The next step is to create trust. Develop mutual respect and use conflict as a positive force by building on the open and supportive culture. Both team development and leadership learning may be needed to do this. Displaying vulnerability is one of the most powerful things a leader can do – saying “I don’t know” or “I’m still learning” is okay.

Tip 7: Recognise both successful and unsuccessful innovators

Recognising failure as well as success can be difficult to put into practice. However, it’s important to understand why individual efforts may have failed – could they have done something differently, or did they fail due to circumstances beyond their control? Do not seek to apportion blame. Seek to understand what support people need to succeed, and then set clear parameters for how success will be celebrated so that this is equal and fair.

Eliminating fear of ridicule and creating an open climate where individuals feel free to raise new ideas through the encouragement of your leaders can lead to a supportive and open culture for innovation. 

Failure to innovate can put an organisation at risk and potentially diminish its ability to grow or sustain competitive advantage. This challenge can be met if companies realise that their ability to innovate is linked to its leader’s ability to establish a climate for innovation.

About the author

Alison Tickner is head of Asia Pacific and a partner of Oliver Wyman Leadership Development. This organisation builds leadership capability across every organisational level, from the executive to the front line - accelerating the development of great leadership as a source of strategic advantage around the globe