Businesses nowadays need to constantly keep innovating their products and services to stay ahead of their competitors. In fact, companies that are more innovative and creative are usually the ones that come up with more exciting new products or services that exceed customers expectations, or even their imagination for that matter. For instance, the super slim OLED TV’s by LG or the Alexa integration into Ford vehicles. (Ref: BGR.com)
These brands have designed products that truly stand out in the market, giving them an edge over their rivals. However, this type of creative thinking and innovative atmosphere needs to be cultivated in an organization, so that employees have more freedom to grow and share their ideas. Here are our top suggestions on how you can nurture a culture of innovation:
1) Know why are you in the market
When the objective of your business is to provide a unique and innovative solution to your customers, then a culture of innovation will come naturally. This objective is what will fuel your passion for what you are doing and drill down within the DNA of your company.
2) Understand what value do you provide
The innovative solutions you offer should not just be a bunch of ideas. They should actually provide real value to your customers. Generic mission statements will lead you nowhere. Try to think from the customer’s point of view and simplify what value and benefits you provide to them, so it can be easily understood by your team.
3) Encourage employees to be creative
Creativity develops through an open dialogue. It is important that you trust the abilities of your team, and give them the freedom to create and execute. Simultaneously ensure that you keep strengthening their knowledge so they can take better decisions.
Some of the steps you can take are:
- Giving access to a variety of skill developing, online courses while gaining accreditation or certification related to the employee’s job duties
- Offering and encouraging personal development training such through local events, workshops, seminars, etc
4) Optimize processes and decentralize responsibilities
A culture of innovation cannot thrive in any organization that has a strict employee hierarchy where employees cannot communicate freely with their superiors. Try to nurture a healthy work and creative environment by allowing free flow of communication between departments and helping each other by sharing responsibilities.
5) Recognize ideas and reward them
When a culture of innovation begins to grow in a company, a lot of great ideas start to come forward. It becomes important to recognize which ideas could work so that they can be implemented as soon as possible.
Rewarding those who come up with spectacular ideas is also a great practice as it helps boost employee morale and even motivates others to try and be more innovative.
To sum up…
Every brand needs to have a certain level of innovation in the products and services that they offer if they want to grow and increase the number of customers. This can only happen if a company genuinely makes an effort to adopt more innovative practices and keep themselves open to new ideas.
