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7 ways to lead innovation

by Jennifer Thompson, Ambassador for Deviant Thinking

It is incredibly easy to be effective as a leader of innovation. Yet so many managers get in the way of themselves and their teams. Try these surprising yet simple ideas to support more innovation in your organization.

1) Get out of your office.

Your company’s next big idea is not coming from your corner office. It will happen in the cubes, labs, and corners of your company. Get up and wander around and see what is happening. Bruce Nussbaum, author of Creative Intelligence, calls these leaders “wanderers.” They wander around and find great ideas. Then they champion these ideas by supporting them with funds, physical resources, and time.

2) Get curious.

Ask lots of questions, but don’t ask ‘why’. Be sure to truly be curious about the products that your team is working on. Ask great questions using ‘how’ and ‘what.’ When you ask this way you will get answers that are important. When you ask ‘why’, you are asking people to justify themselves and their products and this shuts down their creativity.

3) Don’t expect everything to be innovative and ‘wow’.

Be patient with your team; let them try things. Know that many of their ideas will be just okay or incremental but with practice and support they will continue to push things further. Always congratulate them for trying. This goes further than you know.

4) Don’t look for consensus.

If everyone can think of it, it is not innovative. Don’t be afraid to look at something that only one or two people are feeling.

5) Listen.

Stop for just a minute and listen. We know you are the leader and you have lots to say, but listening to those around you might yield some innovative results.

6) Assume you are wrong. Or even better, look to be proven wrong.

The only way to move forward and innovate is to prove that the current way we do things is wrong. So be open to being wrong, or better yet challenge your team to prove that the current way of thinking is wrong.

7) Love the ideas that you want to call crazy.

Every truly innovative idea was crazy as some point. When Steve Jobs said that he was going to create a personal computer everyone told him he was crazy. As we know this is not such a crazy idea today. What are the crazy ideas around you? Can you help make them come true?

 

Tell me about how you need your leadership to support your creativity and innovation. I would love to hear from you.

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