Innovation Mindset

The best idea in the world will fail if it is not supported by positive behaviours from everyone in the team. By making these behaviours explicit and naming them, team members can make an effort to practice them, resulting in greater innovation and improvement in your workplace.

How did you contribute to the team dynamic and its success? Reflect on your behaviours. Were you:

Open-minded―Did you encourage ideas and help build on them? Were you open to learning, to different points of view?

Curious—Did you ask good, open questions to explore new solutions? Did you look outside your environment to see how others did things?

Imaginative—Did you come up with novel suggestions to help improve the idea? Did you visualise the future, the customer, a new product or service?

Helpful—Were you generous with your time and efforts? Did you do more than you had to?

Attentive—Did you notice things that others missed that helped the idea? Did you really listen and pay attention?

Brave—Did you really examine your assumptions to ensure you understood the problem? Did you challenge the assumptions of the team? Did you reframe problems?

Empathic—Did you put yourself into the shoes of others to understand what would work? Did you help resolve conflict in the team?

Trustworthy—Were you reliable? Did you give credit? Did you do what you said you would?

Proactive—Did you take the initiative to progress the idea? Did you anticipate events and problems? Did you accelerate the process?

Gritty—Did you display a passion for the project? Did you persevere to drive through to a positive conclusion?

Resilient—Did you bounce back after a setback? Did you adapt to new circumstances when it was necessary?

Other—Are there other strengths you displayed?

Choose one or two that were critical to the success of the idea and/or the team.

Contrary to popular opinion, innovators can play a range of roles in the innovation/improvement process. That means that every one of us has a valuable role to play. Most of us can play multiple roles; however, we typically have only one or two real strengths.

How did you contribute to the idea implementation?

Reflect and select what you as an individual contributed to the realisation of the idea. Were you a:

Finder—Did you notice the gap, find the opportunity or present the challenge? Did you observe that the customer had a problem?

Creator—Did you contribute the main solution or add new elements to the solution that made it work? Did you imagine what would work for the customer? Did you experiment?

Peer—Did you contribute by being a sounding board, listening well, asking the right questions and providing encouragement?

Expert—Did you provide technical expertise that was important to realising the idea?

Connector—Did you introduce new research, insights, people or outside companies that helped develop the idea?

Doer—Did you get things moving and help organise the trial, the prototype, the customer input?

Influencer—Did you help the team get the funds and opportunities needed to progress the idea? Did you lead the team and help it achieve its goals?

Critic—Did you provide constructive feedback to make the idea more practicable?

Other—Did you play another part in the team?

Choose one or two that represent your strongest contribution.