How to Create a Culture of Innovation – Episode 1 of Leading Innovation

Show Notes

There is not a business today that is not reliant upon technology in one way shape or another, technology has become overwhelming in its influence on the business world and on other sectors of our society. 

Many times, innovation begins with an observation and then in observing a problem or in observing something that isn’t going as well as it could. Within that, there then is an idea for how it can be better, how it can be stronger, or how you can do more with less. 

In an innovative process there are a lot of things that are working against it, no matter how good the idea is. Some of the leadership skills that are necessary to come alongside ideas so that they can survive the rigors of the resistance to change are communication planning, conflict management, emotional intelligence, creating buy in, and generating collaboration amongst people and perhaps even amongst industries.  

Some times, leaders must be willing to stand alone as a disruptive force in an innovative process. 

The tension that we experience is that this need for innovation requires change. People absolutely hate change but they’re more open to the idea of innovation. And so, how is it that we can create an environment of innovation? How can we invite people into this process to where they can get so excited about what the future holds that they can put aside their resistance to change for just a minute? A lot of that has to do with leadership. 

Harvard Business School recently found that change is actually under-communicated by about 10x. What that means is there’s a moment of change, and there’s a leadership team that is leading that change, and the reality is, they need to do 10 times as much communication as they are doing in order for that change to be successful.