Fertilizing Creativity and a Learning Culture in Your Organization

Organizations must change or die! As organizations move toward the top it is necessary for them to create a nimble learning culture that helps them overcome market challenges. Often managers become set in their ways and are more concerned with how to keep people working toward an objective that may not make sense then to actually groom them or implement new ways of doing things that have higher returns.

I have found over the years the best way to create innovation is to tap into people's natural motivation and their need to find meaning within the organization.

How does this happen?

When working with employees you should consider their ideas in the development of the company. Ask them about their ideas and to bring them forward for discussion. Your job as a manager is to weed which one's employees can spend some time on and which not.

Getting employees involved ties them to the organization. They will fell as though they are building something.

When someone passes an idea to you that seems to make sense have them put together a short 1-page proposal of what they would like to do and how it will help the company.

If this proposal makes sense you can consider giving them a little time to work on it and put some better numbers together. Have them conduct a preliminary investigation and determine the resources, time and benefits to the organization.

As you develop a full picture and the resources needed you can move into more project management orientation and develop your teams to actually make these projects work. You will need to be picky because time and money are limited resources. However, each rejected and improve project contributes to organizational innovation, employee development, culture, and revenue.