THE ENTRECODE BLOG
5 Great Ways to Innovate
Many clients’ issues require more innovation in order to boost their business. Here are some of the ways we have helped them to innovate:
- Find the entrepreneurs within the business (about 1:20) using the Entrepreneurial Potential Report (EPR) Saville Consulting and set them the challenge of innovating. This unleashes their natural talents and energy.
- Create an achievement culture. Innovation cannot occur in the traditional power and control culture that prevails in many businesses so get a small group of people (preferably entrepreneurs) and create an achievement culture by agreeing some important ground rules e.g. there are no rules!
- Ask the question “who does this best in the world” and go and find out how they do it. We went to Walmart to find out how they bought and this added tens of millions of pounds additional profit to my client Keepmoat.
- Give smart young people e.g. graduates the challenge of innovating. They are less likely to be tainted by the existing culture and norms so they are more likely to look at issues through a fresh pair of eyes. Our EPR research shows that graduates are better at spotting new opportunities whilst existing managers are better at building capability.
- Try small scale pilots which are low risk but you get either success or learning from them. Make sure you have short feedback loops. If this works scale it up, if it doesn’t, try something else. If you don’t take any risks or make any mistakes then you are unlikely to come up with anything new!
Good luck in boosting your business in 2014.
