7 Steps That Will Create a Culture of Innovation

“After years of telling corporate citizens to ‘trust the system,’ many companies must relearn instead to trust their people - and encourage their people to use neglected creative capacities in order to tap the most potent economic stimulus of all: idea power.” - Rosabeth Moss Kanter

It’s no secret: our world is rapidly changing. The system is broken, and those that aren’t creating a better world, are getting left behind. Open innovation is a system that gives ideas power, not people. Many organisations use open innovation to find the best ideas and work with their communities to improve their services. So how can you also get these ideas from your community? How can you create a culture of innovation in your workplace? The best ideas probably already exist- in the minds of your community and co-workers. If you follow these 7 steps, you will be on your way to tapping into these ideas and driving projects forward.

1. What Do You Want To Change?

Why do you want a culture of open innovation in your workplace? Many organisations want to be seen as innovative, but what will your organisation gain by changing? If it’s another adjective to add to your description, this article probably won’t be helpful to you. Open innovation is a broad term, so it is important to have a specific goal in mind before you make any changes. Which brings me to my next point…

2. What Does Open Innovation Mean To You?

Before making any changes, chat with your co-workers about what open innovation means to your team. Have a blue sky session to determine what your organisation will look like if you are successful in introducing this new culture. This is also a good time to think about internal vs. external innovation. Is your goal mainly to encourage innovation within your workplace? Or do you hope to reach outside of the organisation to drive ideas forward?

3. Start Small

Big innovation initiatives from the top down rarely work. Instead of implementing a new structure from the start, work with a small team. This will let the initiative spread organically. Small groups can give you feedback and share their own ideas on how to implement a culture of open innovation. By making small, incremental changes, the changes that you make are more likely to stick. Further, no one wants to be told by their boss to come up with better ideas. Your team will have more ownership over the process if they are involved from the start.

4. Use Technology

Open innovation is hectic. Using a tool will help you organise, record, and store data. A tool like WE THINQ allows users to submit ideas, vote, and work together to create projects. This makes it easy to keep everyone involved in the innovation process. It also gives everyone access to the different projects and ideas. This allows everyone to feel ownership over the new ideas coming out of the organisation.

5. Let People Experiment

It’s great to see positive results. But if your standards are too high too soon, it will stifle innovation. If too much priority is placed on results at the beginning, your participants will want to stick with the safe methods rather than taking a chance on something new.

6. Measure And Move Forwards

Once you have had a trial period, it’s time to put measurements in place. Finding out what works, and what doesn’t will help you shape the future of your initiative. In addition to measuring open innovation, you can also measure the satisfaction of your team. Do they feel involved in the process? Do they feel safe to put their ideas forward? Do they feel like their work or satisfaction has improved?

7. Build Habits

Once you have discovered what works, it’s time to ensure the sustainability of your initiative. Building habits helps your team members motivated even when they get busy or begin to lose interest in open innovation. Some examples of building habits are to:

• Put aside time slots in to the week where team members are free to work on something new.

• Have a physical space where participants can go to think and chat with each other.

• Send a weekly newsletter of new ideas and projects to help team members stay on track.

What have been your experiences with changing the workplace culture?