One of my favorite comic strips is Pearls Before Swine. Recently the author, Stephan Pastis, had a particularly funny and poignant comic strip. In it, Goat asks Pig if he was worried about being able to pay his rent. Pig responds by asking Goat “What day is today?” Goat responds “Sunday”.
Then as Pig ticks off each day of the week, starting with Sunday, he tells Goat what he worries about each day. When they finally make it to Saturday, referring to “worrying about being able to pay his rent”, Pig tells Goat “so sure, I can fit that in Saturday”.
I am sure that many of us feel the same way. It feels like this year there are so, so many concerns, (I could list them, but I think that would end up being depressing) that at times we may feel overwhelmed.
Relatedly, this myriad of concerns, many of which have been created or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, directly effect businesses and non-profit organizations.
Challenges Currently Faced by Companies
Some of the challenges now being faced by companies include:
- Falling revenue
- Decreased profits
- Customer retention difficulties
- Increased competition
- Required business strategy adjustments
- Employee COVID-19 issues
- Falling employee morale
- Supply chain challenges
- Needed cost reductions
- Diminished positive customer experiences
- Required advertising and marketing modifications
- Political uncertainty
- Shelter in place policies and shutdowns
- Altered customer shopping habits
- Climate change impacts
These issues are ones that are not easily solved.
However, innovation can play a key role in developing solutions to these problems.
Most likely the innovations that can address challenges like these will not be developed by one person working by themselves, but they will require a team of people applying the power of innovation to the difficulty at hand.
Last month we examined the power of Innovation Teams, choosing innovation team members, team leadership and facilitation, and team member interaction.
This month I would like to consider two other key aspects of creating successful Innovation Teams.
Team Member Training
As we saw last month, creative work often occurs in a team setting and hence, collaboration is required. However, creative people many times have difficulty working with others. Therefore, team-member training on how to effectively collaborate in the pursuit of innovation is very important.
Team leaders are often quite reluctant to establish rules about how they will work together as a team. They think, “Since we’ve been working with others all of our lives, of course we can effectively function as a group.” The problem is that people have developed their own life-long thinking styles and communication patterns, and when they are forced to co-labor on innovation, a challenging and ineffective situation may unfold.
Presentation-skills training is also a must because most people have only learned to communicate with their peer group, and only on topics related to each other. This is very important because a key component of furthering the team’s ideas involves convincing outsiders of its virtues.
Effective Team Formation
Creating effective teams and establishing a system where people are allowed to “bid” for projects is a “best practice” 
that can be used to garner enthusiasm. However, company management and leadership should still have the final say in team assignments. Depending on their innovation skill sets and experience, individuals could be assigned to appropriate projects that would further their development.
Studies show that creativity is greater when people are allowed the maximum possible autonomy in choosing the work they want to pursue and the conditions under which they will pursue this work. Therefore, the above “bid” process that allows for self-selection capitalizes on the knowledge that creative energies and their result are directly related to the participants’ interest, curiosity, and intrinsic motivation.
Where to Start
For innovation to flourish in your company, it is imperative that innovation teams be developed and supported. This should start with the overall design of how you will strategically utilize your teams.
Next, make sure proper team member interaction training has been provided because participant’s thinking style and communication patterns may inhibit effective results on applying innovation to the task at hand.
Finally, consider utilizing a “bidding” process for effectively forming Innovation Teams because studies have shown this approach results in increased participant interest, curiosity, and intrinsic motivation.
If you would like assistance with effectively forming and managing the use of innovation teams in your company or organization, please contact us using the information below so we can be a resource to you in this critical area.
Fountainhead Consulting Group, Inc. is an Innovation and Business Planning firm. During the past 17, years we have shown over 1,200 companies how to achieve their goals by using our unique, comprehensive, and systematic FastTrak Innovation Program™, Innovation Academy™, and Structure of Success™ methodologies. Using the components in these methodologies, each month we examine an aspect of how to transform your business or organization into a true 21st Century enterprise.
Office: (770) 642-4220
www.FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
George.Horrigan@FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
Tags: entrepreneur, front end of innovation, innovation, invention, small business consulting, small business planning, start a business
