The Ingredients of a Great Innovation Culture

“When it comes to innovation, people make a difference. And culture is what unites people through a system of shared values, enabling them to collaborate effectively toward a big purpose. A healthy culture can become the inner force driving the transformation of the organization while cultural blockers can prove to be the single point of failure even for well-planned, expensive innovation programs.”

Innovation requires a special culture - a shared mindset that encourages the exploration of new ways to improve business outcomes. But how could a company develop an ‘innovation culture’? Here is a ‘protocol’ that can boost the innovation spirit and accelerate the organic growth of your innovation community.  

1. Innovation is always on, open to all.

2. People show respect for other’s ideas.

3. There is no such thing as a “bad idea.”

4. Some ideas are better than others—in a given context.

5. Great ideas can still fail.

6. Critique is constructive, meaningful, justified, and welcome.

7. Ideas do not have owners; they have originators and contributors.

8. Ideas are free to reuse; attribution is required.

9. Attribution references the chain of originators and contributors.

10. Similar ideas are merged; complementary ideas are combined.

11. There is no single decision-maker for the future of an idea.

12. Originators may not be involved in idea execution.

13. Top innovators are named based on robust, transparent assessment logic.

14. Rules and resulting decisions are transparent and consistent.

15. The detailed history of ideas and initiatives is accessible by all.

16. There is no space for corporate politics.

 Krasadakis G. (2020) The Culture of Innovation. In: The Innovation Mode. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45139-4_2

Check also our unique Innovation Toolkit - a collection of seven innovation templates that empower teams to frame problems, shape ideas, run hackathons and more.