(By Buzz Knight) Innovation: the lifeblood of every business. Everyone loves to talk about its importance, but talk is cheap. What are you really going to do about it?
Companies and businesses of all types face this challenge, and I can help show you a way this challenge can become an opportunity. How are you enhancing your existing culture by building a framework that can lead to an innovation mindset?
It starts with Senior Leadership.
Nothing will change within an organization without the top-tier leadership embracing this shift in mentality.
The best leaders are intensely curious, and they wear that curiosity on their sleeve. They must be curious about technological shifts, new products, new successful product launches, and new failed launches as well. These leaders must encourage their entire workforce to believe that curiosity is a minute-by-minute mindset that not only enhances personal growth but the health of the entire organization.
So how do you take on the transformation of your organization as a priority?
Create a Future-Proof Workshop to encourage and engage your team. I created this concept knowing that this isn’t an easy mindset to shift, and it requires bringing all hands on deck to get your team involved.
The Future Proof Workshop is designed to accelerate your internal organization’s readiness for future trends and show you how to harness your talent potential with positivity and passion.
What are some action steps for this process?
- An excellent starting point would be to gather your team and watch the Jacobs Media 2024 CES recap together. Get their reactions after you view it.
- Assign them a mission to come back to your next meeting to take on the question of how they can use AI to improve the organization. (Fred Jacobs, Zena Burns, and I will be part of a town hall led by Mike McVay at CRS in a few weeks to take on this topic.)
- Deploy a systematic process of garnering data from employees to understand what can motivate them, move them, and delight them. This can help not only build their “curiosity muscle” but also tailor the directions for future team meetings.,
- Think of ways that foster constant education either through workshops, guest lectures, new digital content offerings, or other shared learnings.
- Require one new idea a week – This can be a new business process, a new feature, a new vertical business, or that one thing that will yield “continuous improvement.”
- Create a Futures Team tasked with vetting the above ideas and finding a path to execution if warranted. Senior Leadership needs to consciously build an internal leadership bench. Make a regular internal assessment of the speed of the organization and take actionable steps to simplify and increase deployment speed.
The future can be a daunting proposition, but taking an approach that meets opportunities head-on is the best course for survival and innovation.
Buzz Knight can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. Read Buzz’ Radio Ink archives here.
