How to help your team find time for innovation?
(This is from Edition 72 of The Upleveler, our weekly smartletter)
The short answer? No. You can't find extra time.
Leaders in technology companies say to us: "My CEO, our high-flying consultants, industry captains, the government - everyone says we should innovate more. My team also agrees. But they don't have the time. Can you help them find time for innovation?"
We are up against two universal truths:
There are only 24 hours in a day.
Finding time for innovation reminds us of the friend who never found time for daily exercise. Then he suffered a health scare. It's remarkable how that instantly changed his priorities.
Do you need the equivalent of a heart attack to help your team find time for innovation? Instead, think about these:
Make Them Care
Innovation activities often call for people to go above and beyond their daily deliverables. To do this, they’ll need to care about innovation and the organisation. If they believe in the organisation's purpose and see how innovation directly contributes to its and their growth, they are more likely to stretch themselves.
The Right Contribution
Enable different people to contribute differently to the innovation charter in ways that suit them. For instance, not everyone needs to spend a weekend in a hackathon. Instead, they can provide domain expertise, help with marketing, make the right connections, or just hold the fort on the regular deliverables on behalf of other innovators. And remember to acknowledge all the different contributions.
The Right Knowledge
Help your team learn how to innovate more productively. Help them gain knowledge on emerging areas, techniques like better idea-storming, and skills like pitching. Instead of dedicated blocks for learning, consider a drip irrigation mode: micro-learning on a daily basis.
The Right Practice
Bridge the knowing-doing gap in innovation. The low-stakes environment of a practice ground is useful for learning new ideas and skills. Whether Roger Federer's SABR or MS Dhoni's helicopter shot, they all needed practice before unleashing new ideas in matches of high consequence.
The Right Environment
A stressful innovation environment is a deterrent. Instead, allow people to make mistakes and treat these errors as learning opportunities. Get your teams to practice regular reflection, learn quickly, and move to a learning mindset.
Teams will always struggle to find the mythical 25th hour. But you can make them care enough to want to innovate, make them better at innovating and create an environment that encourages it. Then people find the time to do their daily innovation exercise!
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