I’m not big on fads and buzz words and I’m sick of hearing that we should all be disrupting. The truth is, striving to improve and looking for better ways to do things is anything but new. Decades ago when the desire for better quality and continuous improvement came to the fore, some basic principles were established. They are as relevant today as they were back then. Here’s my take on them.
Try lots of things and keep what works. Experiment. Muck around. Encourage your people to think outside the normal. Be light, not serious with trying new things. When something makes a difference, keep it and make it your normal.
Call things a pilot or trial. Don’t put too much pressure on the outcome. Say “we are going to trial something new”. That way, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t really matter. We’ll just run another pilot.
Prepare to fail. Fear of failure stifles innovation. Understand that not everything will work, and that’s OK. We learn more from failure than we do from success, so when it happens, talk about it.
Fail fast and fail forward. Measure what you do and learn from it. When you realise that what you are doing isn’t working, stop. Do a debrief and share the lessons. Move on.
Put it on the agenda, literally. One of the reasons we take safety so seriously these days is that many organisations literally include it as an agenda item of all meetings. Imagine if we did that with innovation?
It’s the leader’s job to encourage their people to look for better ways to deliver value. We shouldn’t be fixated on ‘disruption’, as we might miss the point, and the opportunity. Good business means striving for better, all of the time.
