How to stimulate innovative thinking and unlock the next great idea…
A lot of the conversations I’ve been having with clients and leaders over the summer, could be summarised in just two topics: agility and innovation.
The desire to increase agility has become much more urgent as a result of recent experience: in times of rapid change, we have to be able to change rapidly, and since March (what with one thing and another) it has become a critical component for most organisations.
But responsiveness in reacting to external change is only a small part of the potential of becoming more agile. The greater potential is unlocked when it’s combined with new ideas and fresh opportunities developed internally, ones that can dramatically improve our ability to create impact, generate new income and further our missions.
Thus, to maximise the value of this aspired-for agility, the most important ingredient will inevitably be the ability to innovate. The ability to identify that next great idea. This is one of the reasons why leaders who are further down the track, are starting to prioritise it, but it’s not the only one.
It’s also increasingly apparent, as I said it would back in April, that the ability to rapidly and continuously innovate is becoming a key differentiator between those who doing well this year, and those who are still struggling to stay solvent.
This is not exclusively a third sector challenge, it’s the same across most industries and I’ve lost count of the number of business CEOs lamenting the lack of innovation bubbling up within their organisations. Their common refrain being: “why do all the new ideas have to come from me?”
The answer is usually revealed very quickly when I ask them how much of their time is spent outside their business, talking and listening to others, thinking about the future, gaining inspiration; and how much time they encourage their employees to spend in that same way.
People can’t be expected to “think outside the box” when just about every structure, role description, process and accountability we create, is explicitly designed to define the box within which we expect them to operate.
Innovation stems from creativity; and creativity can’t flourish unless we create the space and environment where our people can express their curiosity, experiment and improvise solutions, follow their intuition where it strays from the traditional route – to step out of the organisational and process boxes in which we put them.
If we want the next great idea to come from our people, we need to rethink the environment we’re keeping those people in.
I have no hesitation in saying that innovation and agility will be two of the most important, defining characteristics of successful charities for the foreseeable future. The question is, how are you helping your people into that space?