Creating a Culture of Innovation

I asked AI to help me establish a definition of innovation for this article: Culture is a broad concept that encompasses the values, beliefs, behaviors, and material objects shared by a group of people. Culture also includes language, customs, beliefs about roles and relationships, the arts, laws, capabilities, attitudes, habits, and material objects.

I have recently read some suggestions from leaders about how to create an innovative culture. Some of their suggestions:

1. Put the customer first
2. Be Curious
3. Establish a culture willing to change and be forward-thinking
4. Train teammates
5. Listen to teammates
6. Curate ideas
7. Make Innovation a cultural commitment
8. Think "outside the box."

All of those are good. They give an idea of what leaders want or intend. At the same time, what do they mean? What do those look like if I see them? What measures related to them matter? What is your answer when a teammate asks, "What do you want me to know and do?" Let's take the statement "curate ideas." What is your answer for how to curate ideas and to what end? What is driving the need to curate ideas? What does a good idea look like? What does outside-the-box thinking look like? What do you want it to produce? How will those ideas get funded? There are so many open questions that an innovation system needs to inherently answer. Rather than an idea-driven innovation system, I prefer a system that focuses on curating problems and understanding the demand driving the need to innovate. In my experience, that approach doesn't "Compete Against Luck" nearly as much as the notion of curating ideas to drive innovation. Karen Dillon Taddy Hall David Duncan Bob Moesta

Like a broken record, I repeat Buckminster Fuller's quote “If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.” If you want to create a culture of innovation, give tools and methods that will lead to innovative thinking and behavior.

Edward S. Deming said, "If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing." Taking a little creative license, I offer, "If your employees don't have an innovation process to rely on, they will not know what they should be doing or if it is what you want them to produce." A powerful process includes clear language and the behaviors needed to execute the process, which then turns into a new capability. Without a process, you will not be able to harness your employees' passion and knowledge.

I want to explore, through questions, three keywords mentioned in the definition of culture.

1. Language: What language is used within your organization regarding innovation? What keywords do you want teammates to understand? What percent of your organization knows what you expect them to do when you say innovate? What does "putting the customer first" look like?
2. Behaviors: What are the expected behaviors of leaders? How do those behaviors differ across levels? How explicit has your organization made the top two or three behaviors? What measures are tied to those behaviors? What tools does your organization offer that lead to innovative thinking and doing?
3. Capabilities: What capabilities do you want teammates to have? How would you finish this sentence, "Our Directors need to be capable of?" The follow-up question is: "What kind of learning does the organization have in place so they gain the knowledge and build the capability?"

In interviewing many people for my upcoming book, The Innovators Journey, I found a gap between what the most senior leaders believe about their innovation effort and what the people closer to the frontline believe about innovation in their organizations. Ironically, in one survey, respondents offered that culture was what was standing in the way of innovation. Closing that gap requires a system with language, tools, methods, and measures.