Innovative companies are set apart from their competitors and have the potential to fuel future profitable growth. We hear a lot about the need for innovation, but not enough about what it takes to lead innovation.
Innovation is not a thing, it’s a mindset - a new way of thinking about business strategies and practices. This thinking needs to be systemic in nature since it drives every aspect of a successful organization. It should be able to penetrate every element of business.
Your mindset is a product of your choices. You have the power to change your collection of beliefs and ways to look at the world and enhance your capacity to innovate, if you’re willing to change your mental models.
Do you have an innovative mindset? Let me share with you key traits that innovative leaders need to possess.
Disrupt comfort
Come out of the safe and secure corner and take yourself out on a limb. Steer away from your current strategies and capabilities. You can then more easily discover capabilities that you never knew existed.
Dismantle certainty
Innovation requires the ability to suspend your present reality, to be comfortable with not knowing, to be able to forget and relearn, quickly. You can then entertain other possibilities. When you can live with uncertainty, you can create the unexpected, the surprising, the innovative.
Focus on new insight
This can happen through brainstorming and collecting ideas. A good understanding of how things work outside of your perspective is needed.
Seek unpredictable answers from questions. Observe the unexpected. Create new questions. Entertain outrageous ideas. Tap diverse sources. Dialogue with alternative ways of thinking. Only then can you find a breakthrough that leads to innovation and insight.
Don’t be afraid of failure
Fear of failure is an innovation killer. To lead a culture of successful, sustainable innovation, you need to see failure as your friend, not your enemy.
Think of failure as learning experiences. Intelligent failure takes risks and creates confidence and trust within which risk taking and intelligent failure are possible. With this mindset you will be able to break down the fears that derail innovation.
Collaborate and communicate
Innovation isn’t just about coming up with bold new ideas. A big part of it has to do with people – making decisions together, championing new projects, getting sponsorship or having a project team deliver on time. This requires effective communication and collaboration.
Another important aspect of collaboration and communication is the negotiation of meaning. Since innovation tends to disrupt known meanings, groups need to make new meaning together. Otherwise innovation would fail. Being able to communicate effectively and collaborate with people, is crucial for creating innovation together.
Foster creativity
Creativity is also part of the innovation mindset. You need not only out-of-the-box thinking but also lateral thinking. Give yourself permission to day-dream, to "gooff off," to take time for exploration, to let your mind wander. Look at the world from a different perspective.
Look for cultural diversity
Differing voices and viewpoints are powerful factors in steering innovation. Diversity is not just race or gender. It also encompasses the whole human experience — age, culture, education, personality, skills and life experiences. Managed effectively, this cultural diversity offers the flexibility and creativity that drives innovation.
Remember. . .
What can make you a leader that can push for innovation is not some well guarded secret sauce of mental faculties. It is your mindset. That is to say: your attitudes, assumptions and beliefs—your mental models—about how the world works.
Imagine what you might accomplish with your team, your organization, or with yourself, by shifting your mindset and choosing to be more innovative.
I can help you develop a more innovative mindset! Working with me you will find your best individual path for development and change. To find out more, simply click here.
Photo by: archer10