How Innovations Will Help Overcome The Crisis
To survive the crisis and win its place under the sun, innovation must remain a top priority. Here are four suggestions.
1. Embrace a culture of innovation at all levels. The structure of a typical business does not always support innovation. To create an environment where innovation feels second nature, create an organization separate from the parent company that can operate according to its own set of rules and procedures. This allows projects to make mistakes and failures, learn from those failures, and move forward quickly without traveling through the maze of organizational politics.
2. Provide funding for innovation. During a recession, the first thought is to cut funding to categories like marketing and innovation. Don’t do this. To move the business forward, regardless of the state of the economy, you need to experiment and innovate. Teams that do this well future-proof their business, ensuring long-term growth and a competitive advantage over companies that play it safe.
3. Use innovative ideas. Build, test, and learn. Knowledge can be a slippery slope for business. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you know everything. Look to your company’s employees and your customers as a source of insights to drive idea generation and innovation strategy. Experiment with your ideas, making sure these tests work to add value or create a new product.
4. Allow failure to become an option. Innovation is not only about success, but also about learning from your failures. You will not have 100% success with all your ideas. But what is guaranteed is learning, development, engagement, and growth for both individuals and teams, as well as your business as a whole.
