As leaders, we all want it. We all say it. We all wait for it to happen… Innovation.
All too often the wait appears to be too long and true innovation seems to linger somewhere beyond our reach. Leaders whose organizations are not innovative enough seem to focus on that result – on the fact that employees are not finding faster, better, and more efficient ways to perform their work. Innovation is the result of a process.
Concentrating on improving this process by design rather than on the results by chance will foster an environment rich in new ideas and better ways of meeting your organizational needs.
Daring your workers to think differently, empowering them to do so and facilitating a framework for success is the way to go. Converting innovation expectations into an action plan and driving towards completion requires a formal process. Continuously tweaking that process with the gift of failure offers the best perspective while driving performance by design and the best opportunity to transform your organization.
There are five easy steps you can take right now to establish a framework that may transform your employee workforce from monotonous to being a proficient innovation delivery device.
About the Author
J.A. Rodriguez
Senior Manager, IIS EHS
J.A. Rodriguez, CSP, SGE, is a senior manager, IIS EHS, at Raytheon Co. and CEO of Make My Day Strategies LLC. An avid blogger and author, he is a professional member of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), an EHS Today Editorial Advisory Board Member, a member of the Voluntary Protection Program Participants' Association (VPPPA) Board of Directors, a professional keynote and empowering speaker, an engineer, a patented inventor (patent# 5,285,961), a credentialed instructor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a former adjunct college professor in the field of electronics engineering. He was named one of “The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS” and Raytheon twice has been named one of America’s Safest Companies.