Innovation killers, what are they?
Eugene Klymenko, visiting lecturer of Master`s in Digital Transformation Program at KSE
Sadly, many businesses fail to release their most valuable assets: human creativity, originality and imagination. According to the research conducted by LinkedIn creativity is the number one soft skill companies need most in 2020 and the World Economic Forum research rated it in the top three skills for workforces in 2020. However, most of today’s organizations from small businesses to large enterprises and government institutions lack of a systematic approaches to building a culture of innovation and creativity.
If searching on Amazon.com the book on “innovation” you may find over 80,000 search results. Do we really need so many books on innovation? Or maybe the better question should be: Why despite all the creative potential people have to brainstorm creative ideas, they don’t bring them to life? The biggest reason is that we are stopped by numerous barriers to creativity, especially at work. Studies show that there are multiple barriers to successful innovation in the workplace, for an example:
- Fear of failure, self-doubt
- Pessimism or negative thinking
- Lack of time or resources
- Criticism by others
- Lack of diverse experiences and inputs
- Strict policies and procedures
- Lack of support for new ideas and approaches in your company
- Not knowing if creativity is applicable to your work
- Lack of focus
- Exhaustion
Indeed, to become a truly innovative organization or individual the one needs to recognize own creative barriers and reduce their power over the one to succeed in the business. Also, the popular belief is that innovation must be about those significant, once in a lifetime ideas. It is rather the opposite: innovation is a series of small steps and relates to the company culture. Frankly speaking, you probably never come up with a big idea unless you build your creative habits first by coming up with a thousand small ones first. For example, the Japanese concept of “Kaizen” (Continuous Improvement) focuses on small breakthroughs every day bringing phenomenal outcomes over time. Following “Kaizen” allowed Toyota Motor Corporation to become one of the most innovative companies of today.
How can we improve our innovative capabilities?
· Create a psychologically safe place. According to Google’s research teams with open-minded environments are more enthusiastic about sharing ideas and solving complex problems which means more likely to find original solutions.
· Make creativity a habit. What you do every day is your habits, and these daily routines will take you toward or away from any creative goals. The research suggests that creativity involves many social influences on a person. For an example some creative habits to develop.
· Give your creative experiments a system. You may practice the concept of validated learning which comes from the lean startup. The validated learning helps us quickly to validate ideas and build minimum viable products to measure the results of our creative experiments.
· Regular walking improves creative powers. At Stanford researchers have found that walking improves creative thinking. Assuming the average person sits between 7 and 15 hours every day. Evidently this is awful for our health and our mood, which means terribly affects for our creativity.
Not surprisingly many of today’s business leaders embrace the great lockdown uncertainty as creative catalysts demanding innovation. Of course, it is risky to try new ideas or suggest new approaches, but it’s even riskier to play it safe and close your mind to creative challenges. For sure if you don’t take the lead as an innovator in your workplace you can be quite sure that somebody else will.
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More details about program in Digital Transformation: https://mba.kse.ua/program-mdt-en
