How to Develop a Culture of Innovation

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Every business wants to be the one setting trends instead of following them, so what simple steps can you can take to foster a culture of innovation?

Maryalene LaPonsie at Small Business Computing offers a few simple tips that could help improve your organization’s ability to be creative and spot new and emerging trends.

For starters, embrace diversity, and not just the traditional categories of race and gender. Look for employees with different personalities, backgrounds and experience so everyone doesn’t think the same way. And then make it clear that you want to hear everyone’s views and ideas.

Embrace failure too. Let your employees know that every idea doesn’t have to be a home run. If they fear the consequences when an idea doesn’t pan out, they’ll be less likely to take chances. That doesn’t mean that you should swing for the fences on every promising idea; a preliminary test may be all you need to gauge a project’s potential.

And give people time to think. Google allows its employees time to work on personal initiatives that may not be tied directly to their assigned duties. So build in time to let your employees explore new ideas.

Adapted from 3 Ways to Cultivate Innovation at Small Business Computing.