European body aids in drafting document detailing progress of European Social Fund deployment.
A company can thrive in today's competitive landscape by cultivating a culture of creativity and innovation. This culture is built on values of trust, participation, and freedom, which empower employees to share ideas without fear of criticism or punishment.
One of the best sources of innovation can be found among service staff, stakeholders such as suppliers, and even customers. These individuals are in the best position to identify weaknesses, problems, and needs, making them invaluable innovators. Explanatory videos can be a powerful tool in engaging with these interest groups, fostering dialogue, and potentially generating innovation from the dialogue.
Innovations are controlled changes or developments of something new, and they are groundbreaking. They offer added value such as increased competitiveness, securing economic existence, enhancing expert status, and saving resources. However, innovation promotion in companies is scarce, with 95% of new product ideas failing. This failure is often due to rigid conditions combined with high bureaucracy and mindsets that condition an existing culture.
To overcome these challenges, a company can establish a culture of creativity and innovation by creating a psychologically safe environment, encouraging open communication and collaboration, setting clear innovation strategies aligned with company goals, and empowering employees with autonomy and resources. Rewarding creative thinking, embracing failure as a learning opportunity, and embedding innovation into daily operations further promote continuous growth and new ideas.
Key steps include building trust and psychological safety, encouraging cross-functional teamwork, developing an innovation strategy that involves stakeholders, leading by example, instituting regular forums for idea sharing, providing continuous learning opportunities, and measuring innovation outcomes. These approaches collectively create an organizational environment where innovation is embedded in everyday operations, enabling the company to generate and implement new ideas effectively while driving growth and competitive advantage.
Design Thinking and Growth Hacking are methods that support the maturation of ideas into innovations. Design Thinking involves several phases, including understanding the problems of the target group, observing the target group in their daily behavior, synthesizing the results, deriving possible solutions, transferring ideas into prototypes, and testing for suitability. Open-innovation concepts, on the other hand, bring the target groups to the table that will benefit most from the innovation.
Innovation thrives in open environments, and freedom plays a significant role in allowing individuals and teams to switch perspectives, build prototypes, conduct tests, and take valuable breaks for new thought processes. Switching from a 5-day week to a 4-day week could be considered an innovation if it brings progress.
However, innovation efforts among German companies have been declining since the pandemic, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises. Agile Leadership involves breaking down silo knowledge and working in interdisciplinary and diverse teams, which can help to revitalise innovation efforts.
By implementing these strategies, companies can tap into the vast potential of their employees, stakeholders, and customers, fostering a culture of creativity and innovation that drives growth and competitive advantage.
- To ensure continual innovation, a company can leverage diverse perspectives from service staff, stakeholders like suppliers, and customers by engaging them via explanatory videos and fostering open dialogue.
- Beyond employees, innovation can also be sourced from education-and-self-development resources, as Design Thinking and Growth Hacking techniques help mature ideas into innovations that can drive the business in technology, finance, and education-and-self-development sectors.
