How do you drive a culture of innovation in the team?

Innovation can be driven in several different ways. One way to drive a culture of innovation is to encourage people to try new and different things. By doing this, we allow creative solutions to present themselves. A culture of innovation can also be driven by using different tools within the office. Employees can jot down ideas and see what happens by using a whiteboard or brainstorming tool. These are great for brainstorming ideas and are cheap to purchase. Other ways to boost a culture of innovation include encouraging an open-door policy. If an employee has a question, they should ask it. If they have an idea, they should share it. If there is a negative viewpoint, it should be shared. Allowing this culture to grow will promote innovation among the team.

Thanks for sparking this conversation @gauravgoyal_gg for sparking this conversation. Before talking about how to plant the innovation seed in teams, we need to talk about how to create an environment where such innovation can blossom. I really feel there are so many approaches and so much buzz around how to create an innovation-oriented mindset, but there are so few discussions around how to actually allow this to keep going in a healthy and sustainable way. To me, the first step towards allowing true innovation is fostering a culture of "It's ok to say something stupid"! At the core of innovation, there's creating something that's never been done before. This implies experimentation! In turn, experimentation implied failures. People need to feel safe to speak out something that might be stupid, true innovation comes from that gem in a valley of stupid ideas, if you are castrating creativity by setting the bar too high, that gem will likely never be found. What do you all think about this?

Flexibility and support are important factors driving innovation, allowing the team to have enough room to experiment. Autonomy breeds innovation. Oftentimes, we have sessions on brainstorming ideas on how and what should we improve, encouraging everyone to raise their own point of view. Innovation cannot be done without trust and support.