Today's organizations have to innovate to increase their ability to not only survive but thrive in the digital age. How does a company embed innovation in its culture? First reality check: it takes time. Culture is built over time and is highly dependent on the leaders of the organization.
How to get started
1. Invite the sharing of ideas — especially from those closest to your customers, and recognize those who contribute. 2. Review and discuss ideas collaboratively — engage as many stakeholders as possible, commit sufficient time, and recognize participants. 3. Invest time and effort in the top 1–3 ideas — offer support to a small, self-managed team to research, try, discover, and report back. 4. Communicate the outcome — share the story, the successes and even the failures, and use it to build lessons learned.
What this accomplishes
This approach achieves three things: it proactively invites new ideas rather than waiting for problems to occur (an innovative mindset), it demonstrates that employees' ideas are valued (engagement), and it builds knowledge — both from what worked and what didn't (a learning culture). Embedded across many areas of your organization, this gradually and consistently builds a culture of innovation as part of your digital transformation. Pair this with our note on learning through experimentation for the execution side of the same idea.
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