I’ve worked with companies all over the world, and yet when it comes to innovation I still hear excuses again and again. “We don’t have time for innovation.” “We need more big ideas.” “Innovation doesn’t work in our industry.” Organizations use excuses like these all the time to avoid innovation!
Dr. Evans Baiya, Hr.com, November 2021
How to help everyone find their role in creating innovation
Does this innovation challenge sound familiar? Your team leaders and managers acknowledge the importance of innovation and even sing its praises—but if you ask them how they routinely champion innovation within their teams, you might get crickets.
The problem is that most people managers, while they recognize the need for innovation initiatives, don’t engage in these initiatives themselves. Innovation isn’t their job; their main concern is ensuring employees get the necessary day-to-day work done. People managers are good at directing and growing what already exists but often struggle to guide their teams to new ways of thinking and creating.Read More
Dr. Evans Baiya, Fast Company, November 2021
Your company is one disruption away from becoming irrelevant. A few years ago, I spoke at a conference where I told the leaders in attendance this exact statement.
It struck a chord with one attendee: the chief innovation officer of the Great NW + Pacific BBB. He reached out to me to talk about his goals to move his regional Better Business Bureau forward, and we created an innovation academy designed to inspire innovation across every department—the ultimate goal was to jumpstart a culture of innovation. Fast forward 2 years, and 50 employees have graduated from the in-house training, innovation efforts have increased across departments, and the organization continues to report cost savings as departments find more efficient ways to work. Read More
Dr. Evans Baiya, InnovationManagement.se, October 2021
Many companies find it hard to prioritize ideation. Here are five ways to break the pattern and gather a wealth of ideas for your organization.
In today’s rapidly changing world, it’s easy to think that most companies are innovation factories—full of ideas for new products, services, and processes. They need to be, right? Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Most organizations only innovate when they are forced to do so. Many still rely on old knowledge or even guesswork to face challenges that arise. Read More
Dr. Evans Baiya, Fast Company, September 2021
There is nothing quite as energizing as a well-run brainstorming session. When I work with clients on innovation projects, the Ideation stage is one of my favorites. There is a distinct energy and creativity generated when a group of people have come together to work toward solving a common problem. When ideas start flowing without constraint, great things are possible. Read More
By Dr. Evans Baiya
Without imagination, innovation stalls in the present. Futuristic thinking is a critical skill for everyone—business owners, leaders, veteran team members, and new hires alike. Without it, teams can’t imagine what the organization will look like in five, 10, or 20 years. They can’t imagine their future customers, sources of revenue, competitors, or even what it will be like to work at the organization.
These questions take imagination, and without the skills to answer them, an organization’s strategy and ability to innovate are at risk. As a skill, futuristic thinking requires the ability to see the big picture, roleplay long-term plans, make accurate predictions of possible outcomes, and determine the direction to take to fulfill those outcomes. If an organization can’t think beyond the present, taking advantage of changing landscapes in the market becomes much harder.
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Dr. Evans Baiya, AllBusiness.com, July 2021
Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” He was certainly referring to leading in terms of industry: if your company is innovating, it will generally lead the pack. But I think he was also referencing positional titles in the workplace. If you are a leader, you are expected to innovate. And if you are an innovator, you have the potential to be a leader.
But whether you have a leadership title or not, innovation begins with a position—a mental position. From this starting point, continual innovation is sustained by a set of mindsets: convictions of change, growth, and value.Read More
By Dr. Evans Biaya
Creativity is the cornerstone of innovation. As a leader, you want to foster imaginative thinking in your employees. The good news is that everybody has imagination. It follows that everybody is capable of coming up with ideas. Whether bad, good, or great, employees bring ideas with them to work every day.
So, what’s the correlation between creativity and innovation? The truth is, you cannot have one without the other. While creativity is thinking up new things—what could be versus what is—innovation is doing new things to bring new value. The product of creativity is the generation of ideas, and ideas are what innovation is built on. Innovation is simply applied creativity.
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By Dr. Evans Baiya
You could be missing out on $1,237 per employee in untapped ideas.
No, really!
According to a 2019 study by IdeaScale, each employee has on average $1,237 worth in unused ideas. A separate study also showed that employees come to work with an average of 8 to 10 new ideas every day that could help their work.
This means that there are potentially hundreds of thousands of ideas in any given organization ready to be considered, tested, developed, and implemented—ideas that are all around you. The key is to have the structure and the resources at hand to be ready to tap into employee ideas.
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Dr. Evans Baiya, HR.com, November 2020
In my work, I hear a lot of reasons why people don’t engage in innovation: “That’s not part of my job description.” “I’m not and idea person.” “Innovation doesn’t really apply to my industry.” “We don’t need innovation right now. Our company is doing just fine.” “Our workforce is already well trained.” “The CEO is the one who comes up with new ideas.
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