Break your team’s thinking
Key Insights
The way our teams think individually and collectively has a significant impact on how adaptive and organisation is as a whole.
Creative problem solving is a skill that needs to be taught.
The level of resource and leadership investment organisations allocate to developing teams with strong innovative thinking knowledge and experience has a direct impact on organisational growth.
Training our employee to become effective problem solvers de-risk innovation and supports effective change management.
A Learn-by-doing training approach improves retention of information and sees greater buy-in from employees leading to long term impact.
Thinking outside the box needs to be taught
The way our teams think individually and collectively has a significant impact on how adaptive an organisation is as a whole. Strong innovation cultures are epitomised by a developed shared commitment to creative problem solving. But that’s a skill that needs to be taught. Not everyone finds thinking outside the box comes naturally. This is something leaders who are focussed on bringing more innovation processes into their work practices need to keep in mind. When things feel hard, we tend to avoid them. We fall back into our familiar routines, leaving improved behaviours, methods and processes left behind. That’s how change fails. Therefore, how we introduce our team members to innovation is an important consideration. We can’t just announce one day that we have suddenly decided to become more innovative (although this is exactly what many CEO’s do, with disastrous results). The best way to ensure long term knowledge retention, and an increased buy-in, is through specifically developed training programs and a learn-by-doing approach.
You need to invest in your team
When it comes to the workplace, the level of resource and leadership investment organisations allocate to developing teams with strong innovative thinking knowledge and experience is crucial. Detailed training strategies, allocated resources, and supportive leadership all have a notable impact on the success of an organisation’s growth. It’s what we refer to as the innovation capability of an organisation. And it makes the difference between being able to pivot quickly when the need arises or being left behind. Training our employees to become effective, comfortable and natural problem solvers de-risks innovation and supports effective change management. Furthermore, by investing in building innovation capabilities, organisations establish an engaged, empathetic team who are eager to create change internally for a more effective working life, as well as externally for their clients. It’s a win-win.
Learn by doing
Benjamin Franklin was definitely onto something. The Learn-by-doing approach to training has been gaining popularity in recent years, as businesses look for more effective ways to develop their employees' capabilities. The idea is simple: rather than lecture-based learning, employees are given the opportunity to practice new skills and knowledge in a real-world setting. This hands-on approach has a number of benefits, including improved retention of information and greater buy-in from employees. This style of learning allows them to become an active participant in the direction and output of their work. Additionally, Learn-by-doing training can help to develop a culture of innovation and experimentation in the workplace. Exploration is embraced and failure-as-learning mindsets are adopted. Learn-by-doing also allows for ideas to be tested quickly and early, reducing costly redirection of strategies at more crucial later stages in the development journey.
Building your innovation capabilities
Working with our clients, we’ve learnt the importance of building innovation capabilities to engage teams and shift their mindsets. Creating new ideas is only one step in effective innovation. We need to build cultures in our organisations that are open-minded to change, and experienced in exploring the unknown. We need to build teams who are comfortable being uncomfortable. We need to break down the walls around the ‘known’, around the ‘this is how we do things’. We need to replace the ‘what next’ and step out into the possibilities of the ‘what if’. And we need to create cultures who put these new approaches into practice, using processes to drive ideas into tangible reality.
Our Opportunity Accelerator program has been designed to do just this. It is a vehicle for uplifting organisational problem-solving capabilities whilst developing holistic solutions for business challenges. Through implementing Human Centred Design (HCD) and innovation techniques, teams are upskilled while solving real-world, internal challenges currently being faced by their organisation. Over 4 half day sessions, we take our clients on a proven HCD journey to get them innovating with confidence. Upon completion, the teams pitch their ideas to their executive leaders. Investment and impact are delivered.
Recently, our client partner, JUMO implemented our WAVE Opportunity Accelerator program as part of their growth strategy. We spoke with Stefan Dette, President at JUMO China, about his experience. See his reflections below, with brief introduction about the program.
Grass grows where you water it
Innovation is essential to the success of any business, but it can be difficult to foster an environment that is conducive to innovation. Workplaces need to provide employees with training opportunities that focus on up-skilling adaptive thinking processes. By teaching employees how to think innovatively, they will be better equipped to problem-solve and come up with creative solutions. Additionally, this type of training can help to build an innovation culture within the workplace, where new ideas are encouraged and supported by all levels of leadership. With innovation capabilities in place, businesses will be better positioned to take these new ideas and deliver them to market, therefore thriving in the ever-changing environment. After all, grass grows where you water it.
If you would like to find out how the Opportunity Accelerator can be customised for your organisation, get in touch!
Shannon has worked nationally and internationally to improve visual communications with a broad range of brands across education, consultancy, performance automotive, and tech. She has a deep understanding of marketing and understands the importance of empathy-driven communication to create strong brands.
Get in touch
Interested to learn more about how to adopt the mindset of an innovative leader? Get in touch with one of our senior designers to discuss how we can help.