PROCESS | Coaching & Guidance
Like a roaring fire that is blazing and a short while later is a mere shadow of what it was, so innovation within an enterprise can dissipate quite quickly. A company must regularly add fuel to their innovation “fire” and restoke it. Innovation is certainly not a one-and-done process.
Unless an organization continually encourages, guides, and provides coaching to its personnel, its innovation efforts will certainly atrophy. Both resources and focus must be consistently provided to maintain a robust innovation initiative.
We see how quickly innovation can wane within an organization by looking at companies like RIM, the creator of the BlackBerry device, which only a short time ago ruled the roost in PDA’s, while other organizations regularly reinvent themselves through innovation. The encouraging truth is that a company can re-energize its innovation efforts from the embers of creativity that are still warm.
To make the prior eight innovation foundations of our FastTrak Innovation Program ™ a consistent strength, thereby producing a successful innovation program, ongoing coaching must be provided to one’s staff.
Innovation coaching can follow various paths. For instance, internal innovation mentors can be utilized to keep people on track by training certain employees to nurture and foster innovation within a company.
Alternatively, outside experts can be utilized to seed and speed the entire innovation process. This can involve bringing in hand-picked outside thought leaders to provide expertise and outside perspectives on innovation.
A key part of ongoing coaching and guidance involves the use and support of Innovation Teams. Relatedly, numerous studies have shown that a twenty-first-century approach to innovative necessitates working in teams. What’s more, innovation experts stress that for innovation to be successful, it is imperative to utilize teams comprised of individuals with diverse backgrounds.
While the utilization of cross functional/cross-departmental teams is an absolute key to bringing ideas to market, it is necessary to select the best team members for effectively developing innovations. The teams should include people who have different perspectives and orientations to the world, thereby influencing how each person views what should be the end result of an innovative effort.
This diverse team composition requires that the team leader understand his or her own thinking style and those of the team members. The goal is to create whole-brained teams by identifying the styles that are missing and then adding the missing styles
Additionally, creative people many times have difficulty working with others, therefore training on collaboration is a must.
What we do – We provide ongoing expertise to enable an organization’s innovation program to continue to thrive and not to diminish over time, but to remain vibrant and productive.
