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5 Ways to Stop Killing Innovationby Jennifer Thompson, ambassador for Deviant Thinking

Corporations are killing innovation. The ironic thing about this is that the very systems that they have set up to capture and encourage innovation is what is killing it.  Companies have set up innovation teams, as if only those folks can have innovative ideas.  They have created brain storming sessions, as if you can only have a great idea when set in a room with a group of post it notes.

Here are 5 truly innovative ideas about how to be innovative!

1  Why

Does your team understand why they are doing what they are doing?  Is there a “Big Why” behind your company, department, or your own mission?  As a designer myself, I learned just a few years ago that changing my view on why I did my job changed everything I produced.  As a designer in a Fortune 50 retail company I often thought of myself as a designer of inexpensive clothes.  While this is an accurate portrayal of my role, it didn’t compel me to be innovative.  It just helped me to define my daily duties.

With some coaching work, I discovered my big why.  “ I design clothing to help women feel beautiful at an inexpensive price.”  This simple change has helped me to create better product every day.  It helps me to look for innovation and encourage my team to go above and beyond.  After all, we have an extremely important job in making women feel confident and secure.

2  Dream Big

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”- Michelangelo

Set unrealistic goals all, the realistic ones are taken.  Don’t settle for mediocrity.  This is what your competition is doing.  Anyone can dream to be a middle manager, it takes guts to dream to be the president.  They higher you aim, the less competition and the greater chance of success.

3  Seek Out New Perspectives

If you spend your life looking at a mountain from the East side you might miss the fact that there are diamonds shinning on the other side.

I look for things in my life that I enjoy and try to find what I value in it.  For example, if I love going to the theatre, what is it that I love about that experience?  I love the entertainment, I love the laughter, I love the witty comments of the actors, I love that it is set in a different environment than what I am used too, I love hanging out with friends.  So if I then take these values of entertainment, laughter, witt, new environment, and camaraderie. Then, I  apply these values to the problem I am trying to solve, I often come up with brand new solutions.  It allows me to quickly shift perspectives to a positive value perspective.  Give it a try and see if you can come up with some new ideas.

4  Challenge Every Assumption

 “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”-Henry Ford

One of the quickest places to find new innovations is to challenge our assumptions.  It is so easy to fall prey to our assumptions, they become the truths that we live by. I have read somewhere ( sorry, I don’t remember where right now) it was believed in the early 1900’s  that if the human body moved faster that 30 miles per hour it would implode.  Aren’t you glad that assumption was wrong.   By consciously looking for assumptions that we make and rethinking them we can be very innovative as we are not limited by our own way of thinking.

 5  Gain Alignment Not Consensus

If you can get everyone to agree on the “why” and stand behind it, be careful not to water down ideas with consensus.  Achieving 100% agreement on an idea is not realistic.  Alignment to me means that everyone is in agreement to carry out an idea; they see no reason they can’t get on board.  We often see that consensus takes the risk out of ideas, but it often takes out the reward.  Consensus allows us to do what everyone is comfortable with, it doesn’t push the bounds and give us break through ideas.

Did you find this post helpful? Please let me know what ideas you are going to implement? Do you have other strategies to foster innovation!  Please share your ideas in the comments. Also share this article with others os we can create a more innovative world!

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Great post. Gain Alignment Not Consensus is my favorite. I made this mistake in the past and now I know better.

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