We continually hear about innovation and strive to keep engaging our teams to put the right skills and processes for innovation into practice. At the same time, we know that fostering just the right culture for the team to be innovative is important – but often overlooked. How do you go about fostering an innovative team? Here are 4 guidelines we’ve pulled together.

2. One of the Most Stressed Topics Today is
Innovation.
Enormous effort is invested into putting the right
skills and processes for innovation to take place.

3. However,
One of the most overlooked factors of
innovation is fostering the right culture for a
team to be innovative.
Here are 4 guidelines we’ve pulled together:

4. I
MAKE YOUR TEAMS AS
DIVERSE AS POSSIBLE

5. Diversity and Innovation are a Proven Combination.
A key to innovative teams is to make certain you have a diversity of:
When GE Shifted from homogeneous to diverse teams, the productivity
gain went from 13% to 21%
• Thought
• Generations
• Experiences
• Perspectives
• Genders
• Cultures, ect

6. II
LEVERAGE EACH
PERSON’S GIFT

7. Leveraging Each Person’s Gift
Uncovering how each person can contribute outside of pre-conceived
roles can transform the capabilities of a team.
On example could be gender roles, Catalyst found that companies with
the most woman on their boards of directors earned a 26% higher
return on invested capital than companies with the fewest woman.
Creating a list of skills required for the team and having team members
sign up can be a great way to uncover hidden talent and motivation.

8. III
TOLERATE AND EVEN
ENCOURAGE MISTAKES

9. Tolerate And Even Encourage Mistakes
In the article Beating The Odds When You Launch A New Venture,
Gilbert and Eyring argue that risk management is a core competency of
entrepreneurs, and learning from taking risks is what drives innovation.
In the service of innovation, there has to be an openness to be bold
and even completely ‘off ‘ in a culture of tolerance and acceptance.
What this means is that everyone truly believes – and sees this ‘real
time’ – that mistakes are acceptable and even encouraged.

10. IV
TAKE THE TIME TO
LISTEN AND LEARN

11. Take The Time To Listen And Learn
In our fast-paced culture of executing against short-term goals, the idea
of truly listening to one another, being open to what the person is
saying without jumping right in with your own thoughts, and taking
time to think about and learn from one another is a very difficult
concept to put into action.
However, this is the most essential concept to creating an innovative
culture because only by taking time to learn from one another can
innovation ever truly happen.

12. Building a culture of innovation and collaboration
does not happen overnight, it is a process.
We hope these guidelines help you continue in your
process and encourage innovation in your leadership.

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