Motivation plus Creativity equals Innovation.
This is the formula by which it is possible to guide an organization towards innovation. Experience shows us that in general, when we find creative people, willing to question everything on principle, they are almost always unmotivated, either because their work does not pose any new personal challenge to dedicate themselves to, be it because of the environment or working conditions, or relationships with your boss… are not very encouraging.
It is really difficult to find creative and motivated environments at the same time. The shortest way to guide unity in the direction of innovation is therefore MOTIVATION.
Juan Luis Urcola says that within the tasks of the manager or person in charge of a unit (“Make DO”; that is, make others fulfill the assigned tasks), the most important thing is Motivation. When I attended his course, I confess that I associated motivation with positive aspects, creating an environment or appropriate conditions in which the staff acted responding to positive incentives. I learned that in addition to this (that is, using what we could call "the carrot"), motivating also has to do with "the stick"; with provoking the action of people, even if it is using aspects referring to negative consequences for people if they do not act in the direction set by the person responsible.
A first idea, therefore, is that:
INNOVATION must start with MOTIVATION. This leads me to think that it is possible to create innovative environments in the company, but that this does not happen by spontaneous generation or by the casual concurrence of a set of circumstances, but, as Picasso said "inspiration has to catch us working"; in this case, it would be equivalent to the CONDITIONS FOR THE INNOVATIVE PROCESS TO BE RELEASED HAVE TO BE CREATED IN A VOLUNTARY AND EXPRESS WAY, based on working towards that objective. Therefore IT IS TRUE THAT THERE IS A METHOD TO BE INNOVATIVE, which arises from the SYSTEMATIZATION of innovation (just like any other business process).
"The more you look for design motivation and the more you practice custom motivation, the more likely you are to be fully aware when motivation for pleasure comes." Rish Rischling - GE Innovation Manager
This leads us to the second idea that most companies want to be innovative, but few make the right effort.
In this sense, I believe that companies and individuals have clear agreements. Because, to be honest, who would not like to achieve and achieve personal successes… with little effort, instead of constant and oriented work? Who is willing to go the longest way, when the end goal can be reached by a shortcut?
But the lack of achievements on the road to an innovative organization may lie not only in not making the appropriate efforts, but on the contrary, in making them, executing them appropriately.
What are the areas in which to carry out the efforts in a business organization to guide innovation?
- MoodAttitudeMechanismsMeasuringImpulse
Of these five areas identified in Andy Stefanovich's “Look at More: A Proven Approach to Innovation, Growth and Change”, to drive innovation, we are in the mood.
To motivate creativity and innovation, it is necessary to change the mood of people and by aggregation that of the organization. It is known that encouragement can directly affect creativity and motivation and, by extension, innovation.
I do not know of any specific rule for determining the state of mind of a person at a certain moment. You simply know if the time to do something is appropriate or not. For example, it costs me a lot to go shopping, I always hang around and as an excuse I say "today I have no body to go shopping"; Now the day that I get “inspiration” (that is, it changes my mood) then I have to stop myself! Or rather, the credit card does.
If it is already difficult in itself to promote innovation, it is much more so when the collective spirit, that is, the work environment, the relationships between colleagues, do not promote the “brush” of ideas, there are no meeting places (it is of "coffee time" such as "innovation time" for example) that facilitate them,…
With the arrival of a new coach to soccer teams, his performance usually changes substantially, and generally the change is for the better. All this despite having the same staff, the same players, management team facilities and organization. However, it is a propitious moment for the change, to leave behind the “labels” that each player might have in the eyes of the former coach: “he thinks that I am very slow or that I am not going well in the head, or that I get along badly with the flying half,… ”
With the new management team (coach) the opportunity opens to free myself from personal burdens, to demonstrate to the new what I am worth, surely I will have more opportunities to play more minutes,… these are just some of the reflections that can trigger the collective spirit of a team. Similar considerations are also applicable to professional teams.
“The actions that we repeat over and over as we work become rituals. And these rituals play for or against motivation and creativity ”
In my experience, it is also very important to help this change in mood spread, as if it were a virus that affects all or most of the organization. In other words, everyone participates in the euphoria of a change of direction and tries to position themselves and look for new opportunities. Hence, as a general rule, the opposite, that is, discouragement, lack of enthusiasm, is more easily found in those organizations with life-long management teams, without rotation, with people who hold the same position and the same functions for years and years. (I'm sure you are also thinking the same thing as me!) And many examples come to mind of people who perpetuate themselves in office and are the greatest enemy of innovation.
Why is it that these types of profiles abound in mature sectors and in organizations with a low level of innovation?
As an anecdote, it should be noted that I recently contacted Jon (fictitious name), manager of a bank established in Spain, online. This is a young person, dynamic and full of concerns and with experience and favorable disposition for the implementation of joint reflection initiatives on aspects related to the financial field. Well, the conversation with Jon exuded a feeling of incomprehension on the part of his bosses, who did not see to what extent it could benefit their financial institution to be the promoter and promoter of massive events of professionals related to the financial world in a broad sense.
Obviously, the executives of that entity have not integrated the concept of social networks into their business strategy, nor do they grant the value due to having a brand image positioned in an eminently global environment such as financial, where the attributes of reliability and prestige ultimately reinforce Users' trust, which is a key aspect of the financial relationship and which determines whether to be a customer or not.
Possibly in an unconscious way, the executives of his entity were cutting off an “unpayable flow” of new initiatives by this young man, wasting an excellent opportunity to achieve a better integration of the entity with its potential network of clients and increase the satisfaction of the same. This aspect for which in other environments you pay a lot of money.
It is known, contrary to what one might think, that in service activities (as in financial intermediation) complaints and claims are considered by quality services as true veins on which to work to improve user satisfaction.
Therefore, the day will come when executives, in addition to economic results, will be evaluated based on the levels of innovation incorporated into their team or organization.and that as now the determining factor is the dividend generated per share, the indicators derived from a 360º evaluation of the manager, or the number of new projects undertaken, the improvement in the average level of training of the personnel in charge, are also incorporated… or what do I know?, any indicator to use that reports on the work environment, on the level of training and growth of employees, as propitiating elements of innovation. However, it will be too late for those who curtail and discourage initiatives that have arisen within the organization, with an evident lack of medium-term vision, or prospective blindness, as was the case in Jon's case.
In addition to the above, the key question regarding encouragement is : How can you help change the spirit of an organization?
Surely there will be many ways to do it. Each one, when the time comes, will come up with different solutions. There are cases in which it is intended to generate a certain Disconcert in a conscious way, changing the environment in which to hold reflection meetings and launch the project, organizing collective events, etc. At other times, it is about provoking people with incisive questions about their role and their performance in the organization. When was the last time you had a plausible initiative? And profitable?…
Dear digital passerby, I am sure that you know cases derived from your own experience or referred by third parties, which could be used as examples of changes in the organization's spirit with positive or negative results (which you learn from everything), which you will have come across in your career path with "prospective blind" and "crazy visionaries". I challenge you to share without hesitation or further delay your personal experience in this regard. It would be quite innovative, right?
After observation and encouragement, the third premise to guide an organization to innovation is to focus on attitude.
It is about changing the attitude of the leader to encourage employees to think differently, and I would also add, act differently.
It is already known that there is no greater madman than that who, always acting in the same way, tries to obtain different results.
Innovation is about doing things differently and probably getting better, different results.
Fear of failure, criticism or uncertainty is one of the biggest censors of ideas in teams. People are so afraid of the consequences that they do not adequately explore innovative proposals to face their problems
Nerea Urcola says that the key is still in the people, so that the aspects of academic-theoretical training will be useless if people do not want to "shoot." Furthermore, we are not facing a situation of lack of ideas, but of people who want to make them come true.
This has a lot to do with how failure is lived. Here if a person starts a business and it doesn't work, he wants to delete it from his CV. In USA the opposite occurs because what is rewarded is the "you tried" and not the "failed" as in our environment.
On the other hand, there are few bosses who enhance the error. And when after trying you receive a negative consequence, you stop trying and say: let someone else stick it! and that leads to inaction. We admire Steve Jobs, but we all prepare oppositions and long to be civil servants.
Nor is innovation possible without working to the death. You cannot innovate with a mentality from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is necessary to pose it as a permanent challenge and be "alert" at all times.
«The true pending innovation continues to be that of people and their management on a rational and emotional level» Nerea Urcola
In order to unleash a movement favoring innovation, a double current must be precipitated, which we could call "top down" and "bottom up".
i) The process should be triggered in the first stage, that is, from top to bottom. The management team must promote a change of attitude in the team. For this, there is nothing better than “leading by example”, changing their attitude in professional and personal relationships in their case, breaking down the barriers or distances often established as “territory markers”, clearly demonstrating to third parties that "There is a boss" and without leaving any doubt about who he is.
Provoking and organizing informal gatherings and celebrations, without hierarchies, as people, as equals, contributes greatly to expanding the culture of the new attitude throughout the organization. Once the movement has reached sufficient critical mass and draws an increasing flow of people to join it, the rest (that is, the undecided) will quickly integrate into the new current, contributing in the same way with their contributions.
Finally there will be the redoubt of skeptics (there are them in all organizations; trying to eliminate them is a mistake; with them the objective is rather double:
- Make the most of positive readings of their permanent denigrating attitude (one might say they are "angry with the world"), on the state and functioning of the system. Try to reduce the size of this group to the minimum possible.
Just as it is necessary for the change in mood to be contagious, the pessimistic, negative vision of the organization and its environment is also contagious and therefore the objective of the manager must be, after trying to integrate it into the now majority current and having failed, isolate it, reduce it to solitude, leaving a door open to its "reconversion".
As a general rule, many novice people managers try (naively) the principle that "everyone is happy." Well, this is practically impossible. When you relax first, it is the beginning and is replaced by "that as many colleagues as possible are happy and motivated", much better!
ii) But this approach is incomplete if a Bottom-up Change of Attitude is not promoted. Employees must be aware of the change efforts that they are trying to promote from the first levels and also contribute with their contribution (I speak of a "conscious effort") to accelerate the process to benefit a better work environment in which to develop aptitudes and abilities that enrich the value of the employee and, by aggregation of all of them, to the human capital of the company. In this way, it will improve its competitive position in the market, increasing profit expectations; the share price for the dividends received and / or expected,…
Example:
How many times, when learning via some training course, conference or similar, topics of great interest to improve the organization of a company in any of its fields, we have asked ourselves: Do "bosses" know this? Are you aware of what this technique, program, practice, etc., would improve our organizational environment?
Too often, the information flows, proposals,… that circulate in the lowest areas of the organization chart, are not known (nor wanted) by the executives responsible for strategically guiding it. It is as if in one place and another of the same company they were tuning into different radio stations. Hence the importance of "synchronizing" and "homogenizing" culture and business discourse throughout the organization.
In summary, the attitude of the members of an organization affects its level of competitiveness and its contribution to improving the well-being and wealth of its immediate environment.
