5 Simple Tips to Boost Innovation in Your Organization

To begin driving innovation, you need ideas. Your employees – especially front-line employees like sales, support, etc – have a lot of good ideas. But how can you go about encouraging them to share their ideas? Answer: Use a formal idea management process.

An idea management process encourages sharing of ideas and helps you manage them. Using a good idea management software (such as IdeaGlow) can help you quickly implement a formal process.

2. Don’t Be Afraid of Mistakes

Mistakes help you learn what works and what doesn’t. Let your employees know that it’s totally okay to make a mistake.

For many employees, the fear of making a mistake stops them from sharing their ideas or even thinking up great ideas. Letting your employees know that mistakes are okay, encourages them to share the great ideas they may have.

Sure, there will be mistakes. But some of those mistakes will turn into great innovations. After all, Penicillin, chocolate chip cookies, and Post-It Notes are just some of the many inventions created by mistake and look at how they’ve changed the world.

3. Encourage Risk-Taking

Give your employees the freedom to experiment, learn from their mistakes, and succeed. Encourage them to take risks and think outside-of-the-box. Supporting your employees for taking risks further encourages them to be creative.

4. Express Your Passion in Driving Innovation

If you as a manager are not passionate about innovation, your employees won’t be either. Express your passion for driving innovation openly & often. Tell your employees that you want to hear all their ideas. You can even create an innovation community in your organization.

5. Include Employees from All Levels and Departments

Your employees are all valuable and they can easily help you innovate. Including employees in all levels and departments can greatly increase the number of ideas you receive. Including everyone can also help you innovate in every department of your organization.

What Are You Waiting For?

Now that you know these 5 tips to boost innovation in your organization, why not start doing it? You can get going by setting up an idea management process in your organization and begin receiving ideas from your employees.

Suggested Next Steps:

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• Companies of all sizes (from Fortune-500s to growing startups) use IdeaGlow software to build their own innovation management programs. IdeaGlow is affordably priced & relatively easy to implement. If you’re interested, you can apply for a FREE 30-day trial of IdeaGlow software.