Innovation has been the king of business buzzwords since before the VCR and home computer hit the mainstream, and its relevance grows by the day\u2014as low-hanging competitive fruit like headcount reductions become increasingly long in the tooth. A relevant question in the face of this reality is whether any leader in any company can make their organization innovative, regardless of industry and maturity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Let\u2019s turn to Fortune\u2019s<\/em> three most admired companies for a possible answer. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak met at the Homebrew Computer Club<\/a>, and Wozniak said of the Apple I, \u201cIt was to really show the people around me, to boast, to be clever, to get acknowledgement for having designed a very inexpensive computer.\u201d Larry Page and Sergey Brin built a web crawler called BackRub<\/a>\u2014which grew into Google<\/a>, now Alphabet\u2014as a thesis project at Stanford based on Page\u2019s fascination with tree-like information structures and Brin\u2019s affinity for complex mathematics. According to Jeff Bezos, Amazon represented a \u201c regret minimization framework<\/a>,\u201d spurring him to leave his prestigious Wall Street post over nagging remorse for not having participated in the internet boom sooner.<\/p>\n

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While a relatively small sample size, these titans of innovation are woven of a cloth common to other innovators at their level\u2014too free-spirited (and expensive) to work for you. But to stop at that realization would be just about sinful given the extreme value innovation brings to today\u2019s enterprises. After all, the market caps of Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon<\/a> were $0 at the time of their founding ideas. As of this writing, they have grown to $616, $543, and $405 billion respectively.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Still, never fear. These companies are of a size now that the jaw-dropping new toys and services they produce aren\u2019t the brain-children of their founders anymore. They\u2019re coming from employees. You have employees\u2014probably the right kind of employees. But they don\u2019t know it\u2014yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
$\"Enemy$ <\/p>\n
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WASSERMAN<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>
Enemy of innovation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is because human nature is highly transactional. How do you shop? Pack for a major trip? Cook a meal? We make and\/or think in lists. It\u2019s no different in business. Our calendars are glorified lists as are our inboxes, agendas, and project schedules. This organic transactionality is our nature. It is also an enemy of innovation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Yet, the aforementioned giants hire people who put their pants on the same way yours do. The difference is that from the time their only employees were the officers on their corporate filings, they began with an innovation culture and carried it forward. Innovation is what they\u2019ve always been, through and through.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Your task\u2014admittedly not small, but the rewards are staggering\u2014is to create a similar culture where list-checkers begin to look to the sky of possibility, taking their new creations to market effectively. The elements of that culture are:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Give them something super-aspirational for which to STRIVE:\u00a0<\/strong>One message common to the titans of innovation is: \u201cWe are in the business of creating things people can\u2019t live without but don\u2019t know about yet.\u201d On the surface, these are absurd aspirations, much like\u00a0Seinfeld<\/em>\u00a0being \u201ca show about nothing\u201d and one of the ten most popular comedies in history. Just remember that our perception of the world went from flat to round. Removing the absurdity from the aspiration requires a leader to look workers who are in transactional mode in the eye to convince them that they believe in their own goals. Have a big, obnoxiously haughty mission statement, and communicate it with confidence until you get feedback that your employees have bought in.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
$\"A$ <\/p>\n
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SEINFELD SHOW<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>
A belief in absurd aspirations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Give them space to EXPLORE:\u00a0<\/strong>I believe curiosity is the starting point of innovation.\u00a0Nestl\u00e9 Waters North America<\/a>\u00a0has likely been the greatest pure-play innovator in making bottled water a hip, germane fixture in U.S. culture while \u201celiminating an average of more than five trillion calories per year from the American diet over the past 15 years,\u201d according to\u00a0 Tim Brown<\/a>, its Chairman, President and CEO. Mr. Brown is a champion of\u00a0 curiosity<\/a>\u00a0in business. In our interview, he held that curiosity is achieved in several ways. First, present painstaking detail that \u201cshows people where you want to go, which creates a mood of positivity and adaptability.\u201d The second, promote a \u201cbe here now\u201d (i.e., mindful) mentality that ensures employees cordon off moments for deep contemplation. Finally, echoing a previous interview I had with Deloitte Consulting\u2019s CEO,\u00a0 Janet Foutty<\/a>, getting employees to \u201cassume positive intention\u201d breeds more of a mindset of collaborative risk-taking. \u2014 Click to tweet<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
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Get them to MOVE:<\/strong>\u00a0Speaking of risk-taking, all too frequently, the tree of an innovative idea falls in the forest, and no one hears it. Good ideas are worthless without implementation. Along these lines, Nestl\u00e9\u2019s Brown posits that \u201cthe greatest enemy of innovation is fear,\u201d\u2014fear of failure and losing face with one\u2019s colleagues and in one\u2019s career. As a leader, the key to eradicate fear is to admit to employees when you stumble, how you feel about it, and what you learned from it.\u00a0Sylvia Arbesu<\/a>, Regional Director of Operations for Starbucks Coffee\u2019s greatest admiration of CEO Howard Schultz, our foremost hot beverage innovator, is how he reminds us as leaders that we must vulnerable and lead with transparency. Together, vulnerability and transparency help us grow as leaders and help our partners grow as well. Do this, and your employees will take it upon themselves fearless execution of great ideas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
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Make them think about the TARGET:\u00a0<\/strong>There is a flip-side to infusing your culture with a creative and proactive mindset. As you nurture this enthusiasm, it needs a target. The single greatest historical contributor to failure of innovation to meet its user has been raw excitement lacking perspective about the target market. Amazon\u2019s Bezos has\u00a0obsessive focus on the customer<\/a>. At Amazon, all products and services are bred starting with the customer in mind. In fact, development teams must write customer-facing sales copy for their idea before it is evaluated for funding. Be absolutely certain to channel innovative enthusiasm with the end in mind to save precious time and money.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
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Create the proper setting to EXPEDITE innovation:\u00a0<\/strong>Fledgling startups have so much freedom built into their business models, empowered employees can shoot in countless directions at once. The other extreme is traditional blue chips competing with Silicon Valley\u2019s finest while choking on arcane checks and balances. Building confidence in an idea in an environment that requires a week or more of approvals for ordering a $25 part for a prototype is certainly difficult. Remedies like lean and agile methodologies are tried and true. Infuse their fundamentals in your company\u2019s operations, philosophies and messaging. While focusing on ensuring every task adds value, these principles are also very customer-focused.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
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Cultural transformation can be daunting, for certain, but keep in mind you don\u2019t need to invent the next iPhone. Nestl\u00e9\u2019s Brown cites an example where \u201ca team invented a robot built out of a cordless drill and cleaning cloth,\u201d both from Home Depot, that cleaned conveyor belts. It was a product unavailable from any vendor, expedited the cleaning process greatly, and kept employees off of dangerous ladders. No one understands your company better than your employees, and their incremental, continuous innovations can be cumulatively as valuable as Silicon Valley\u2019s next product darling. Invest in freedom to create and ability to execute, and watch your people create growth\u2014driving value of which you never could have imagined.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on\u00a0 Huff Post<\/a> 10\/31\/2016<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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