The Academy blog

Unlocking the innovation potential of large teams: three small actions with big consequences

Summary

"Once upon a time, people thought creativity was done by a lone creative genius who was struck by profound insights. In fact, innovation requires a fair amount of trial and error, and often happens in teams…”

Martin Seligman (co-author of Tomorrowmind: thriving at work with resilience, creativity and connection – now and in an uncertain future).

How to help these five types of innovator reach their potential

Discussing which types of innovation priorities and interventions are the best fit for each group, to make innovation accessible for all.

Tim Whittlesea

Learning Experience Designer at Ninety. Tim is responsible for ensuring that learning with Ninety is effortless and engaging, so that individuals and organisations can realise their development goals.

Leaving innovation to a few individuals in a specific business unit or lab is leaving a lot of potential on the table. Those key innovators are critical to progressing big ideas, but they have a larger distance to travel to understand most problems than colleagues working ‘on the ground’. Creating an environment where everyone can collaborate to innovate isn’t as difficult as it might first seem.

Starting small is the best approach, here are three small actions that can have big consequences for unlocking innovation in your team.

Our first action is designed to encourage Cross-Functional Collaboration.

Innovation thrives in a diverse environment. Encouraging cross-functional collaboration can bring people with different skill sets and perspectives together to solve problems. When people from different departments work together, they bring unique insights and expertise to the table, which can lead to new and innovative solutions. However, it's important to ensure that everyone feels valued and that their contributions are recognized.

Our first action is to set aside one hour a month where everyone can focus on collaborative innovation. Your innovation hour doesn’t need a complicated agenda – it is simply a place for colleagues to share problems they are facing or working on, and do nothing more than asking others what their perspectives are on that problem. Their only action is to find a time to continue conversations that excite them. This last piece is important, nobody likes adding things to their to-do list, but if you create a space for these connections to occur organically you’ll find that colleagues naturally begin to collaborate around problems and ideas that interest them.

Our second action is designed to help us to create a Culture of Experimentation.

Innovation requires risk-taking. Creating a culture that encourages experimentation and tolerates failure can help unleash creativity in your team. However, this is easier said than done. Everybody needs to feel safe to take risks and experiment without fear of repercussions.

As the manager of a large team, you can establish a "safe space" for employees to try new things and experiment with new ideas. One simple way to do this is to create an idea graveyard. This could be a space on your intranet, or even a notice board in the office. Here we create monuments, and by this I mean a short post, or even a post-it, to all of our failed ideas. Placing something in the graveyard does require that we have thought about what we have learned from it, but fundamentally it is about celebrating the time we spent with the idea, and creating visibility around the process. Failed ideas and things we have tried are no longer things to be swept under the carpet as you try to get your next idea off the ground, but useful learning experiences.

Our last action is about enabling innovation and empowering Employees to Solve Problems.

At Ninety, we believe that anybody can innovate. In fact, as Seligman notes, innovation is more powerful when everybody innovates. By establishing a base level of innovation knowledge, you can help ensure that your team members can communicate with each other effectively about innovation. This will enable them to collaborate more effectively and generate more innovative solutions.

This doesn’t mean upskilling every individual to the same degree as your dedicated innovation team, but could mean unlocking some of the resources that they use and making them available to everyone, or investing in some ‘start with the basics’ training. Something like our virtual innovation bootcamp, that you can set colleagues up with to engage with off the side of their desk reduces time spent for you, but still means you are developing a shared innovation language.

A little can go a long way, and once you have your innovation hour, you could also encourage employees to share their knowledge and insights with each other to foster a culture of continuous learning.

Unlocking untapped innovation potential in large teams requires a combination of small actions and cultural changes. Encouraging cross-functional collaboration, creating a culture of experimentation, and empowering employees to solve problems can have a big impact on the creativity and innovation potential of your team. By establishing a base level of innovation knowledge among your team members, you can help ensure that everyone can communicate with each other effectively about innovation, collaborate more effectively, and generate more innovative solutions.