CEO Today shares our article on The 6 Freedoms Your Company Culture Needs To Become More Innovative.
Innovation is not a word that should be used frivolously. However, in recent years it has become a throwaway term that is frequently applied in reference to a product, act, or outcome. Few people use innovation to describe a continuous cycle or collective – a culture.
In my experience, innovation as a culture is a ‘way of life’, a place to mix beliefs, knowledge and behaviours, which is why my organisation has adopted a set of company values that are built into everything we do. These drive all of our actions, from how we hire people, to how we conduct business. They are honesty, humility, kindness, reliability, and self-direction.
However, having values is only part of the process. In order to participate and develop a culture, you need people who not only believe in those values, but who act on them. When I am asked about innovation I don’t point to the product. I point to our people and how they make the product happen.
To cultivate a culture focused on innovation, I recommend allowing for the following six types of freedom that enable growth and create transparency and harmony in our company:
Embrace and learn from failure. Not everyone is perfect, not everyone knows everything. But, the true defining bit of character that distinguishes good employees from the rest is how they respond to failure…