In an effort to outpace competitors, industry-leading businesses have invested heavily in innovation. An innovative corporate culture allows businesses to hurdle industry roadblocks with relative ease. Additionally, an innovative corporate culture gives companies the firepower needed to develop advanced products and services. Apple would have never developed a smartphone without adopting an innovative corporate culture. Moreover, Google would have never become the world's leading search engine without pushing technological bounds. Finally, Airbnb would have never revolutionized the hospitality industry without thinking differently about customers' wants and needs in a room booking service.
5 Easy Steps to Build an Innovative Corporate Culture Without Disrupting Daily Operations
Unfortunately, most businesses avoid building and fostering an innovative corporate culture in the fear that it might cause serious disruptions to day-to-day operations. The good news is that there are a few easy steps to construct a more innovative corporate culture without causing unhealthy disruptions:
1. Get Executive and Management Approval
Start by getting executive and management approval. The most innovative corporate cultures are built around an energetic and focused leadership team. In most cases, innovation starts from the top-down. Explain why the business needs to adopt a more innovative corporate culture and provide a clear roadmap towards corporate innovation success. What does success look like? What are the steps required? Who is responsible for overseeing and managing corporate innovation? Be sure to keep corporate stakeholders involved during every phase of innovation including goal setting, implementation, and more.
2. Outline Innovation Goals and Objectives
Secondly, outline culture innovation goals and objectives. What does the company want to achieve in terms of cultural repositioning and what are the exact steps needed to get there? There are a few good practices when it comes to goal-setting including:
- Have precise goals. Can the goals be tracked or measured?
- Set goals in accordance with team members' strengths. How are you using employees' skills?
- Keep goals inspiring. How will these goals help team members and the company level up?
- Set concrete goal deadlines. Are the deadlines realistic and attainable?
3. Celebrate Early Wins
After you've outlined your culture innovation goals and objectives, it's time to get started. If your first mission is to cultivate a greater entrepreneurial spirit within your company, don't be afraid to celebrate those early wins. Sometimes, the simplest advancement or add-on can deliver the greatest benefit to your corporate culture. Additionally, during the early stages of corporate innovation, give employees the resources and tools to propose new innovative ideas. Try hosting innovation workshops, presentations or classes — this is a simple and effective way to gather new ideas and key insights. This kind of early success will give your team the firepower it needs to achieve considerable corporate innovation momentum.
4. Create Incentive Programs to Reward and Recognize Employees
Be sure to reward the employees that go out of their way to build and promote a corporate culture revolution. For example, if teams typically worked in silos, reward the team member that went out of his or her way to collaborate with other team members. It can be as simple as recognizing them for their hard work, offering a simple gift card or even establishing an employee of the month program. These simple rewards are a great way to incentivize others to work towards culture innovation goals and objectives.
5. Commit to Routine Iteration
Finally, if something isn't working, don't be afraid to make a few changes along the way. Committing to routine iteration is a simple and effective way to stay on pace. If you're working towards building a next-generation product and missed the prototyping deadline, don't be afraid to pump the breaks. Ask yourself — why did we miss the deadline? What can be done to avoid missing future deadlines? Give yourself some grace and flexibility when it comes to nailing cultural innovation, and you'll be better equipped to avoid considerable disruption.
Achieve Innovation Mastery for Your Business
Sure — you can follow these simple tips to build and promote a more innovative corporate culture, but are there any special hacks to really dial your company's innovation up a notch? Many of the world's leading businesses have joined a corporate innovation program. What is a corporate innovation program exactly?
Each model is different. However, most programs are designed to help you hurdle innovation roadblocks. RocketSpace's corporate innovation model grants industry-leading corporates with access to new and emerging technologies. These types of technologies allow businesses to build next-generation products or services. Joining a corporate innovation program might be exactly what you need to achieve corporate innovation mastery. RocketSpace has worked with some of the world's leading innovators including Volkswagen, Nestle, BP, and others!
