Are You Creating A Culture of Innovation?

Great companies make innovation happen. The basic element is culture. The worlds best structures will under perform without a culture that supports people trying new things. 


How can we engender a culture that supports innovation you ask? Here are a few of the insights the Kellogg Innovation Network has learned:

1. Nurture a sense of purpose - take a contrary approach to business; innovate around your core product; practice flexibility in the face of obsolescence
2. Operate as an ethical alternative - focus on a purpose of significant social merit like supporting recycling, saving the planet, support cleaner air etc.
3. Celebrate smart failures - understand why there was failure and build on it to succeed and avoid similar outcomes.
4. Create MAOE - create meaningful, actionable objectives & enable people to act - inspiring challenges can fuel an innovative culture. Meaningful objectives can inspire people to create solutions.
5. Emphasize the team - culture is not an individual it is a team, group, division, company, Top innovators require teams to challenge and take the idea to market.
6. Walk the talk - you have all heard that before, and you will continue to hear this. Hypocrisy is one of the most powerful ways to generate a culture that becomes dysfunctional. If leaders to not find time to encourage new ideas, then others will not follow.

Does your company create a culture of innovation and how any of these six areas does your company follow? 

thanks to Robert Wolcott @ Kellogg Innovation Network and Jorn Bang Andersen from the Nordic Innovation Centre