Are you an innovation enabler?

17th December 2020

McKinsey showed that organisations which innovate through a crisis outperformed the market – by 10% during the crisis by 10%, by almost 30% afterwards. Innovating through the coronavirus pandemic is crucial.

Within your organisation, are you an ‘innovation enabler’ or an ‘innovation blocker’?

1. When there isn’t a concrete plan, how do you feel?
   1. energised about creating the future
   2. panicked
2. When there’s a new idea, do you
   1. get excited by the challenge of making it real;
   2. focus on what might go wrong?
3. How well do you understand your customers’ current situation?
   1. I’m engaging with them every day
   2. my role doesn’t interact with customers
4. When did you last change something about how you do your job?
   1. I’m always looking for ways to improve
   2. the way I work works – why change it?
5. What are the biggest concerns for each area of your organisation?
   1. I speak to colleagues daily and fully understanding their priorities
   2. I keep my head down and focus on my own work

If you answered mostly (a), you’re probably actively driving change within your organisation.  If you answered (b) for any question then reflect on whether you might be preventing change.

The starting point for innovation is being clear on what you want to achieve.  This ensures the whole team is pulling in the same direction. Then encouraging the following behaviours will set your organisation up for success:

• Collaboration to find ways of moving forward rather than focusing on problems.
• Comfortable with change – the journey to achieve those objectives will change. What you deliver to customers may be different or be delivered in a different way.
• Customer-focused and curious about their problems and needs.
• Listening to colleagues and understanding their different perspectives.
• Being open to changing your mind about how things are done.

 

Hannah Keartland

Telephone: 07976 102 865

Website: www.hannahkeartland.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/hannahkeartland