Most organizations are not setup to hire innovators, rather they filter them out. Why? Because they follow the tried and true solid advice for making good hiring decisions: hire for culture-fit.
To hire for culture-fit is to hire for comfort, the short-term, sameness; to keep optimizing what is rather than creating what’s next. The problem with hiring for culture-fit is that if your culture doesn’t reward risk taking and learning from mistakes then you will filter out innovators.
Mobilizing and energizing a culture is predicated on the organization clearly understanding the vision, mission, values, and goals. It’s leadership’s responsibility to involve the entire organization, informing and inspiring them to live out the purpose the organization in the construct of the values.
On this episode of the Big Bang podcast I chat with Shawn Parr, CEO of Bulldog Drummond, on how to mobilize company culture.…
Many of the most successful companies strive for constant change and new innovations in the workplace. For them, new ideas are the lifeblood that keep things rolling towards a more productive, collaborative, and happy workplace environment. Furthermore, they see innovation as the key to remaining at the top of their respective industry and push the boundaries of what is possible.…
How diluted has the word innovation become that, on top of confusing it with anything new, we rationalize why we should innovate.
Here are a few:
Let’s innovate so we can grow our business, otherwise we won’t!;
Let’s innovate so we can eek out a little more revenue from existing products and services;
Let’s innovate so we can develop new revenue streams, new business, new products & services;
Let’s innovate so we can be competitive with the rest of the world;
etc..
I’m sure you’ve heard some version of these before, and there are more like these. The above rationalizations are correct, but does it get you fired up? I’m sure it doesn’t.
An indicator that all this rationalization it doesn’t work to spur action is how many people still ask themselves: what’s the point?
Why do you want to “innovate”? Seriously, think about it…
Is it because you’re embraced common rationalizations followed by everyone else who can’t think for themselves? If you are, it sounds to me like you are playing not to lose.…
Frankly this is not a huge insight because human relationships live off trust. If you want to bring out the best in others you have to trust them and them you. If you don’t trust others and aren’t trusted then forget about it. That simple!
Just like communicating with your spouse or husband breeds openness and trust, a healthy relationship, why should it be any different within organizations?
I bring this up because I see a lot of businesses (new and old) where it seems nobody in the organization likes each other (more on this on another post). Not to mention trust each other. While we may be talking a storm about how innovation is about learning to cope with uncertainty, I think we sometimes forget that for this to happen it starts with people trusting each other first.
How do you begin creating trust with your co-workers?
Be a fan of your co-workers
There are people whom you work with that you get along with better than others and that’s ok because you have common interests and ways of thinking. The real challenge is to get along with others who are not like you because they are the ones who WILL force you to be better by challenging you to get out of your comfort zone. To do this you have to understand that everyone has something to offer and you need to find out what that is.
Basically it comes down to:
Finding out what they like, that will then lead to knowing what they’re good at.
Doing what they like with them.
Sounds simple and it does take work for many but…
If you’ve been in a relationship then you know that doing stuff with your partner brings out the best in them because you’re doing stuff that makes them happy. That creates bonding which leads to trust. You become fans of each other and want nothing but the best for each. When this happens everything you do tastes, feels and looks different. And it’s all because of that trust.
The same thing happens with your co-workers. They’re human too!
You can’t buy trust, you have to work for it.
UPDATE: Here’s John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, on how to take trust from ideal to real:
With that said I’m a BIG fan of my friend and biz partner, Christian Laborin. Dude loves to draw and he’s pretty damn good at it too. I keep telling him he should be working at Pixar!
Here are some of my favorite drawings by him:
P.S. This is no shameful pug for my pal, this is actually the first time I’ve put any of his work on this blog. Maybe I should’ve done it before
