Management Tip of the Day:Promote Innovation on Your Team

By Staff Reporter

Apr 02, 2012 09:25 AM EDT

It's not easy to foster a culture of innovation, especially when there are day-to-day pressures to perform and conform, but your organization has a much better chance of success if everyone has the ability to innovate, says Harvard Business Review.

The Management Tip of the Day offers quick, practical management tips and ideas from Harvard Business Review and HBR.org (https://www.hbr.org).

"Organizations need innovation on all fronts, not just in new products, services, or technologies. But many managers don't innovate because they don't think it's their job.

Here's how you can build a stronger innovation culture on your team:

1. Implement an immediate innovation. As a team, identify ideas that will reduce costs, save time, or improve customer service. Pick one or two to implement right away to demonstrate success.

2. Identify an ambitious goal. Once your team has confidence in its ability to innovate, set a larger goal. Can you reduce costs by 50 percent? Can you combine services to help customers?

3. Continually foster innovation. Include 'Innovation' as a category in performance reviews. Recognize colleagues who try new approaches even if the results aren't perfect. And, give people time to think and experiment."

- Today's management tip was adapted from "Innovation Is Everyone's Job" by Ron Ashkenas.

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