7 Secrets For Innovation Leaders

Want to lead your company to the top of its field? First, you must foster a culture of innovation...and that begins at the top.

Naturally, you want your company to be a leader in the marketplace. How can you achieve this goal? Create and nurture a company culture based on innovation.

First, instill a mindset of continuous innovation at every level of your company. We have to debunk the myth that creativity is a trait a few select people are "born with"...that there are those with "creative personalities" and then there are the rest of us. In fact, we all have the potential to be innovative, at least to some degree.

It's clear that creativity is unlearned as we grow up. The business world has traditionally favored analytical thinking over the capacity to innovate. Business schools produce highly trained young men and women who think along strict parameters. But times have changed, and now the mission has to change - to help people unlearn their uncreative habits.

But where to begin?

I'd like to offer the following seven tips for fostering innovation, gleaned from my personal experience over the years:

1. Encourage a culture of tension. An alliance-based network often results in a highly matrixed organization that focuses on both capabilities and line responsibilities. Although tension is often thought of as undesirable, it has been discovered that debate and discussion unleash creativity in an organization. Issues, and hence opportunities, surface much more quickly. The key is to avoid deadlocks in debates where creativity is stifled and progress is not made.

2. Educate all employees. Company-wide education is essential before any change program is rolled out, if a company's capabilities are to be kept running smoothly throughout the turmoil that such a program inevitably brings about. Most people innately prefer the status quo unless and until they are given some sound reason why an alternative is preferable.

3. Use the new orientation to bring managers closer to customers. Frontline personnel are often quicker to adapt, and less resistant to the idea of a new way of thinking than are a company's managers. Companies can speed up a sluggish start to their transition by nominating a few potential champions at the top of the organization and at successive levels further down. The designated champions can then be sent out to experience firsthand some of the problems that face the organization's customers. This results in bottom-up leadership from those closest to the customers.

4. Buy expertise that you do not already have in-house. In many cases a new idea - and the proposed route of the journey - is so strange that organizations do not have the in-house skills that are needed to make the transition. They need to go out and find help in those areas where they have insufficient expertise - for example, with the techniques of change management. Most importantly, outside help can help you surface and challenge assumptions that may be invisible to the rest of the organization.

5. Communicate clearly, continuously and repeatedly. It is not possible to exaggerate the need for transitional information to be clearly and regularly communicated throughout the organization. If in doubt, remember the Rule of 50s. The first 50 times you tell people something, they don't hear you. The second 50 times you tell them the same thing, they don't believe you. Only during the third 50 times that you tell them do they begin to listen.

6. Build safeguards that prevent backward steps. Senior managers who are not close to their customers can stall a transition that is already well under way and may even cause it to revert back. This can sometimes occur because of an unexpected change of leadership. To minimize the risk from such a changeover, companies should develop several strong leaders on the team so that there is someone to carry on the role of champion if (and when) one of the others moves on.

Additionally, employing a phased approach can help prevent setbacks. Taking on too much change at one time can be a shock to the organization and can lead to a sort of traumatic inertia.

7. Realize that one size does not fit all. Organizations should not try to follow any one case study too literally. No two companies will pass through a transition for the same reasons or by following the same sequence of events. Not only does one size not fit all; one size doesn't even fit two.

Any leader worth his or her salt should be enthusiastic about creating a culture of innovation. After all, a company with such a culture naturally rises to the top. Once innovation becomes a way of life for your company, people will want to work for you. You will begin to attract the best and the brightest. And before you know it, your company will be a leader - not a follower - in the marketplace.