10 Ways to a Sustainable Creativity/ Innovation Culture

All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of conventional wisdom.

- Hyman Rickover

What business would turn down more creativity and innovation in their employees? Here is a list of tips to create a sustainable innovation culture where these skills can grow.

Want a culture of innovation? Choose a few of the following guidelines and make them happen. Once satisfied with your progress on those, pick a couple more …

If not YOU, who? If not NOW, when?

Wherever you can, whenever you can, always drive fear out of the workplace. Fear is “Public Enemy #1″ of a creative/innovative culture.

Always question authority, especially the authority of your own longstanding beliefs.

As far as the future is concerned, don’t speculate on what might happen, but imagine what you can make happen.

Help people broaden their perspective … by creating diverse teams and rotating employees into new projects — especially ones they are fascinated by.

Ask questions … about everything. After asking questions, ask different questions. After asking different questions, ask them in a different way.

Learn to tolerate ambiguity … and cope with soft data. It is impossible to get all the facts about anything. “Not everything that counts can be counted. Not everything that can be counted counts” said Einstein.

Encourage people … to get out of their offices and silos. Encourage people to meet informally, one-on-one, and in small groups. Build a culture of collaboration.

Make customers … your innovation partners, while realizing that customers are often limited to incremental innovations, not breakthrough ones.

Develop a process of testing … and trying out new concepts quickly and on the cheap. Learn quickly what’s working and what’s not. It is important to act with speed and urgency. Get customer feedback before committing resources to a product’s development.

Before reaching closure on any course of action, seek alternatives. Make it a discipline to seek the idea after the “best” idea emerges.