How To Achieve A Culture of Innovation In The Corporate Environment

How does an organization adapt to an ever changing marketplace with an emphasis on creating value through innovation? The typical corporation has the creative types and the analytical types. In this fashion, responsibility is delegated to where management thinks it is a better fit within the organization. This only leads to a bottleneck obstructing the flow of creative ideas.

To truly be an innovator, you must create a culture where all participants can challenge why something that does not make sense to them. This requires a high level of trust, communication and freedom. Simply, the company must convey to its employees that the company hasn't got it all figured out and they want employees to challenge the status quo.

To achieve true innovation, the following five steps to creating a culture build on creativity should be considered:

1) Creativity is better in the team environment. There is so much more that can be accomplished when persons from different disciplines and backgrounds exchange various ideas in the brainstorming process.

2) One of the biggest challenges is creating a culture where the talent can coexist and still fell comfortable enough to let their creativity blossom. This can take the format of a peer culture with employees supporting each other.

3) To be creative, you must accept uncertainty. Most people will revert back to what has been successful in the past, but this will often limit what can be accomplished through creativity.

4) There must be final authority so all ideas are reviewed and acted upon properly. The final authority can be an individual or a small team, but they have the responsibility that chosen ideas are aligned with the project objectives.

5) The creative culture must break down the typical hierarchy of corporations so people from different disciplines and different levels are treated a peers would be.

If you had to focus on only one aspect of achieving success in a creative environment, I would suggest that culture is the key to success. You must have an open culture that all participants feel a freedom to suggest ideas. The talent can't be consumed with worry that retaliation will be at hand if the leader goes in a different direction. It is the unobstructed flow of ideas that create breakthrough innovation in the corporate environment.

Think of Apple creating the Ipod and then, the Iphone. Once you get innovation right (Ipod), then the chassis can be moved forward to other like products and processes. Apple has been less successful on the personal computer side as the dynamics of the PC industry offer more constraints than in the mobile device area.

This indicates some industries are more open to innovation than others. I would not disagree with this thought as the consumer changes from product to product and even industry to industry. Strong leadership can make a difference by determining how innovation can be applied to different products.