Lean Tip
#3601 – Create Energy by Thanking All

Recognizing
employees for their efforts, not just their outcomes, doesn’t dilute the idea.
Instead, it acts as a fertilizer. It energizes individuals and the entire organization.
And encourages people to keep contributing. The enthusiasm around trying to
make things better is infectious and fun. And that is itself a catalyst for
creativity.

Lean Tip
#3602 – Empower Your Employees to Think About Tough Problems

As
Apple’s Steve Jobs said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell
them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”

This is a
key technique to encourage workplace innovation: empower your employees to
think about the tough problems and reward staff for working towards solutions.

People
are as innovative as you allow them to be. If you empower your staff to chase
their “aha moments”, you’ll soon find yourself with a more dynamic and
innovative workplace.

Lean Tip
#3603 – Give Your Staff a Reason to Care

To be
truly innovative, your employees need some skin in the game. They shouldn’t
think about innovation as something for senior management to think about –
instead, innovation should be part of everyone’s job description.

Look for
ways to incentivize staff to think about innovation, and bring them along the
journey by developing a company-wide innovation strategy.

Lean Tip
#3604 – Encourage Your People to Think About Innovation on a Daily Basis

Innovation
shouldn’t be something people think about only during retreats and workshops.
If thinking about new ways of doing things is seen only as an occasional
exercise, you’ll never be able to access the full potential of your employees’
creativity and imagination.

Instead,
make room for your staff to consider innovation as part of their daily tasks.
For example, manufacturing giant 3M is famous for giving its employees a 15%
time allowance every day for constructive daydreaming.

Of
course, this doesn’t mean handing out a 15% buffer for employees to just snooze
at their desks. You should ask your people to demonstrate the results of these
innovation sessions.

Lean Tip
#3605 – Accept Failure and Make it the Norm

It’s an
unavoidable fact that innovation carries the risk of failure. For every example
of world-changing innovation, there’s a whole trash heap of failed ideas.

Rather
than running from this fact, companies need to come to peace with it.
Acknowledge the possibility of failure, dedramatize it and encourage risky
initiatives to help employees approach innovation in a more open and inventive
way.

Lean Tip
#3606 – Develop an Innovation Strategy – and Use It

An
innovation strategy sets out guiding principles for how your company will grow
its market share through product and service innovation. A good strategy helps
to clarify what is expected of employees at every level of your company when it
comes to problem-solving.

By
developing an innovation strategy, leadership provides employees with certainty
about the core role of innovation and reinforces the idea that innovation is
everyone’s responsibility.

Developing
an innovation strategy also forces senior management to think about what
innovation means to them, and to state in clear terms how their employees
should contribute new ideas for products, systems, and services.

Lean Tip
#3607 – Ensure Staff Psychological Safety

This is a
crucial element to get right. After all, employees don’t want to feel like
attempts at innovation could threaten their jobs if it goes wrong.

Your
staff members need to be able to be honest and forthright about new product and
systems suggestions, without fear of recrimination or adverse effects on their
jobs.

So, one
of the first things you should do when encouraging innovation is to set clear
ground rules and let people know that their positions won’t be at risk if the
innovation exercise isn’t a success.

Lean Tip
#3608 – Be Open to Change

The first
step in becoming more innovative is to develop a mindset that is open to
change. Innovation involves coming up with new ideas or new systems for
completing tasks. Being overly connected to the way things are done presently
may limit your creativity. You can practice being open to change by
participating in newly implemented processes or by attending a new work event
or professional outing. You can also improve your mindset by telling yourself
that change is good and that you can adjust to new circumstances.

Lean Tip
#3609 – Seek Out Positivity

After
developing an open mindset, you should work to establish a sense of positivity
in your personal and professional life. Having a positive outlook allows you to
maintain your openness to change, and it can help you be more confident about
your ideas or decisions.

This
outlook can also help you be more receptive to ideas that your colleagues or
co-workers may have, and is likely to encourage collaboration and team
brainstorming. You can find this positivity internally and externally by
connecting with colleagues or a mentor who has a cheerful or hopeful
disposition and making positive affirmations at the start of each day.

Lean Tip
#3610 – Have Confidence in Your Ideas

To be
more innovative at work develop your confidence in your ideas. Emulate the
characteristics and traits of innovative thinkers that you learned during your
research, and brainstorm ideas for change. If you notice room for improvement,
reach out to the appropriate person and let them know how you feel. If you
believe you have a good idea, express your thoughts and take action to make a
positive change.

Lean Tip
#3611 – Pick Small Projects for Big Wins

We often
think that ideas must always be big, transformative, and game-changing. But
often, it’s lots of small, novel things that add up to make a huge difference.
The benefits to small-scale innovation are huge. Not only do they happen
quickly and (most often) without a lot of fuss, they also garner the interest
and attention of both your team and organization; thus paving the way for
bigger, meatier innovation projects to follow. Try changing lots of small
things.

Lean Tip
#3612 – Flip Your Assumptions and Change the Status Quo

We all
have things we do with our eyes shut. It’s part of what makes us excel at our
jobs, but also part of what blinds us to opportunities. Over the course of the
day, identify all the tasks you do without thinking. Take a moment to talk
about how you could do them differently. Sometimes it won’t work (spell check
might always be the best way to proofread your work). However, it will often
lead you to find a new way of doing the same old thing.

Lean Tip
#3613 – Break Dwon Siloed Thinking to Promote Cross-Functional Thinking

Siloed
thinking occurs when departments or teams become too focused on their own goals
and objectives, leading to a lack of collaboration and communication across the
company.

One way
of dealing with this issue is to create a culture of transparency by sharing
information about the organization’s goals, strategies, and initiatives across
different departments and teams. This can help to break down barriers and
promote collaboration. Also, encourage cross-functional collaboration by
creating opportunities for employees from different teams and departments to
work together on projects and initiatives. This can help to break down silos
and promote cross-functional thinking.

Lean Tip
#3614 – Overcome the Resistance to Change

People
are often resistant to change, even when it is for the better. Resistance to
change can manifest in many ways, including reluctance to try new things or
fear of losing control over established processes.

You can
deal with resistance by clearly communicating the need for change and its
benefits to the company. This can help employees to understand why the change
is necessary and how it will benefit them.

Consider
involving your employees in the change process by soliciting their feedback and
ideas. This can help to build buy-in and ownership of the change process.

Another
idea is to provide training and support to help employees adapt to the change.
This can help to reduce anxiety and increase confidence in the new process or
system.

Lean Tip
#3615 – Remove Unnecessary Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy
can stifle innovation in two significant ways. Bureaucratic processes can
create long lag times, which can result in missed opportunities for innovation.
For example, a lengthy approval process can delay the implementation of a new
idea, making it irrelevant by the time it is finally approved.

What’s
more, bureaucracy often reinforces the status quo and resists change, making it
difficult for new and innovative ideas to gain traction. This can be especially
true in large organizations, where established processes and procedures can be
difficult to change.

Bureaucratic
processes can also lead to a lack of ownership over innovation, with
decision-making and implementation often spread across multiple departments and
teams. This can make it challenging to take risks and experiment with new
ideas.

One way
of removing unnecessary bureaucracy is by implementing a flatter hierarchy.
Flatter hierarchies reduce layers of management to create a more agile and
responsive company. This can be achieved by eliminating unnecessary levels of
management, empowering teams to make decisions, and promoting a culture of
collaboration and teamwork.