Kathy Harris

Cultural attitudes can stifle or block significant change initiatives before they really get a foothold — inertia and unwillingness to change are major failure points in innovation programs. Our Gartner clients often ask “how do we build a culture of innovation?”  Sometimes, the real question is “how do we remove the barriers to innovation?” 

I believe this cultural change is easier to achieve than you might think — if you’re willing to try a direct approach.  Just remember that innovation and culture are not soft stuff; this is the hard stuff. So, if you really believe in innovation, you’ll need toughness and courage to make it happen.  Here’s my formula:

First, decide what innovation behaviors would look like in your organization — if you simply toss the term around and expect that people will know what you mean, then nothing will happen. Are you looking for people to simply contribute ideas? Or, do you want people to know the strategy of the organization and act on their role in achieving it? Or, do you want people to actively participate in innovation communities (contribute ideas, build on others ideas, challenge the status quo or collaborate to move ideas forward)?  Whatever innovation behaviors mean to you, explicitly define this and write it down.  Create a short checklist of 8-10 expected behaviors and communicate these expectations.  

Next, decide what’s different for managers vs. other employees when it comes to behaviors?  Organizations must hold managers accountable for leadership levels of performance in creating this culture — after all, managers are the role models for their teams and peers. If managers don’t participate and don’t believe that innovation is important, then their employees and others they influence won’t think it’s important either.  So, clarify how the expectations for managers differ from those for employees. And, write it down — for each expectation in your checklist, describe the behaviors for managers in one column and for their employees in another.   

Then, be prepared to hold people accountable. If innovation is really a priority, it should be reflected in both the organization’s strategy and employee performance planning.  Make innovation one of the 5-7 key accountabilities for employees. Write this down and allocate 10-15% of the performance plan to participation and achievement of innovation objectives.  Again, if your organization believes that innovation is critical to success, you must say so in how you measure performance for managers and for all employees.

And finally, be prepared to act on what you’ve done. If expectations are ill defined, refine them. If the process is broken, fix it.  Commit to continual improvement. Walk the talk. And, if behaviors don’t change, realize that your organization may have to change some of the people — managers or team members. Remember that innovation is not soft; it’s hard. And if it’s really important to your organization, you must make it so.