According to research, a risk-aversive corporate culture is the number one killer of innovation. Today, organizations require strong, committed leaders to create an environment that both supports innovation and drives it forward. These leaders will accept risk. Leaders that focus all their attention on achieving short-term goals, particularly quarterly numbers, create an environment where the longer-term actions necessary to drive innovation are squashed. They send a message to employees to avoid innovations that require longer-term investment and support only those ideas that will help meet the shorter-term results that management is seeking. As a result, the organization becomes focused on sustaining existing products and services rather than innovating to stay ahead of the market demand.
An organization that has a strong culture of innovation recognizes the need to engage all employees in the process of innovation. They will measure management's performance on their ability to create new, value-added products, services and systems. And they will also measure the extent to which management are able to engage their staff in this process, rather than making changes independently.
Innovative cultures permit all levels of staff to try new things. Cultures that insist on requirement for compliance in every dimension create barriers to innovation. This is because they often punish individuals who experiment with new ideas, especially if they fail. When organizations fail to celebrate creativity and ideas from employees they rarely have a vibrant and creative environment for innovation to thrive. In contrast, organizations that encourage creativity and new thinking inspire others to follow suit, thereby building a culture of innovation.
Business Improvement Architect's Innovation Culture Assessment
™ (ICA
™) will help you to develop an innovation culture that addresses the question often asked by senior executives, "Why aren't we better at innovation?" It will:
- Identify the current state of innovation throughout the entire organization.
- Provide you with the information on the current state of innovation by position, department and location.
- Determine the risk aversiveness of the corporate culture and how likely it is for new ideas to be promoted or squashed in infancy.
- Develop an action plan to re-shape your organizational culture to become innovative.
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