Innovation is not always easy, but nothing good ever is. Whether you work alone or with a small staff, the key to your success is to make innovation a priority for everything you do. Bring an innovation mindset to every aspect of building your business and how you operate it on a day to day basis.
What does that mean? To remain forward thinking and creative you have to be in love with progress. Progress comes when you are curious and audacious.
Always Be Curious About the Next Best News for your Business
It's easy to stick to things because they worked in the past. Unfortunately, that is the way that progress comes to a halt. To be in love with progress you must be:
Have the Courage to Challenge Conventional Wisdom or Accepted Norms
There should be no scarier words for you to hear than that's the way we've always done it. You can play it safe, but as any innovative entrepreneur will tell you, it's much more satisfying and rewarding to summon up the courage to venture into the unknown with a new strategy, product, or event experience. It's a bit scary to defy your ego and be vulnerable because innovation so often involves risk, be it financial, reputational, emotional or physical. Yet, that is the only way meaningful change, improvements and great things happen.
nnovation so often involves risk, be it financial, reputational, emotional or physical.
Innovation requires courage which means you must be open to:
Virtually all innovation involves executing these six courageous things.
Innovation, by definition, is all about solving problems and doing it in a way that exceeding expectations and current limitations. There is a process to thinking innovatively about a problem to find out what works and does not work rather than relying on your gut or emotional responses. Start with these facts or assumptions:
When you identify a meaningful problem, consider that there might be underlying causes that triggered the problem in the first place. You can break the problem down into smaller chunks or reverse engineer the problem to trace the problem to its origins. You investigate the pattern of negative effects to find hidden flaws, physical, organizational or human deficiencies, conditions or the actions that contributed to the problem. Think of it as a puzzle with several moving parts. The best way to find the right innovation solution is to examine the parts one by one to figure out:
Conduct stringent analysis, drawing out answers systematically, questioning to establish truths, reveal underlying assumptions, and separate knowledge from ignorance.
Then reassemble the pieces from their basic level up, making sure you understand at each connection the why of what you are doing. Ask continuous why’s. If you do not have the answer go back to the drawing board.
When you identify the right innovation you have to consider what taking a particular innovative step could mean for your business. Ask yourself:
You know that to gain competitive advantage you have to think and do things differently than your competition. Your innovation process starts with exploring what’s possible rather than settling for what is. You would do that even if you were buying an existing business or revamping one.
There are similarities in the innovative practices that help organizations grow and stay relevant. The key is to make innovation a priority for everything you do. Bring an innovation mindset to every aspect of building your business, from inception to determining internal processes. To keep improving in all aspects of your business, you and your team should be continuously looking at your products, services and procedures. These type of questions should be at the forefront of everyone’s daily activities:
As your business expands, hire innovative thinkers. Surround yourself with curious people who ask questions and explore possibilities. How can we make it better? What else could we do? What if? These are the questions you want to hear around your organization.
Innovation isn't all about ideas; there also must be a way to turn them into new practices or products. That requires patience and time to overcome the hurdles and implement strategies. It is easy to get discouraged when new challenges arise and things do not go according to plan or changes in the market happen quickly. Start by taking the long view, relax expectations to be more realistic, and focus on the worthwhile end result of staying true to your vision. Focus on the action and do your best work.
As a small business owner
you should assess whether you are sourcing enough good ideas from outside your
immediate think group. The more ideas generated, the greater the chance of
finding innovative ways to combine them into something new.
Inspiration can strike when you least expect it, but that is rather an inefficient way to drive innovation and creativity. Want a do-it-yourself approach to decision-making and problem solving? Try one of these brainstorming techniques to develop your ideas.
Professionalism is what you do visibly that impresses and inspires others and what you do behind the scenes – integrity, self-regulation, conscientiousness – that allows you to fulfill your role to the best of your ability and gives you a sense of satisfaction and self-worth.
When you are overworked and under pressure, try these two super easy-to-implement strategies to fend off procrastination. They can be completed quickly and more importantly they work best to set the tone for an excellent day.
Kindness should extend to our colleagues and work family. In the workplace, kindness is a catalyst that helps to build trust, drives morale, improves well-being, engagement, and productivity. Kindness makes you feel good and that is a good way to spend your day.
As a professional, you want to get the job done – and done well. You do what is necessary to produce results that exceed expectations. You recognize whatever you do to keep advancing personally and professionally also helps your business to thrive.
