Create an Atmosphere of Innovation Across your Organization
One important lesson from a Consultant’s arsenal that can be shared with all clients is to help employees overcome the habit of being skeptical about new ideas. Whilst going head on into anything without prior planning is fraught with the risk of failure, not sharing and acting quickly enough is also a malady. More so, in these times when innovation is permeating into every field, it becomes very pertinent to be taken up by all consultants.
Every employee in organization experiences bouts of creativity. All of them have ideas on making their work easy and improving the process. Bringing value to the table is always at the back of their mind, but they fail to get around to implementing the same.
Be it large-scale assembly line or a team of creative designers, there is no set rule as to when the Eureka moment will strike and whom it will strike.
Just like Cupid, Eureka also can strike anywhere, anyone, anytime!
So how open is your organization in trying to assist people to share those ideas as they sprout?
When was the last time you conducted an open house gathering and allowed everyone share their new ideas?
It is not always necessary that every idea is going to get the whole company excited. The person need not bother if no one cares or no action is taken but just give out the thought.
Even if a few people or even if one person could make sense out of it and wants to encourage this thought, the opportunity should be made available.
Consultants need to tell their customers to circulate a lot of messages that ask employees to “just say it,” — don’t worry what others will think, keep going, keep persevering, don’t give up!
Listed below are few points which consultants need to educate the employees of the clients. This can be a good assignment which the client love to be paying for.
Take yourself and your ideas Seriously
Take yourself seriously. Get the better of the idea that what you’re doing isn’t important enough.
Realize the ability to get excited about something and go for it with some sort of crazy abandon. Remain focused, stand firm and get on top of a mountain and shout out what you would like to do.
The ever arising doubts like:
Should I be floating this idea? What if others make mockery of me? Hasn’t someone else said this before in a better way? Do I even know what I’m trying to say? No one is going to read this… I should go work on something else.. etc. are all a sheer waste of time.
Having these confusions whenever you try to create something new is an unacceptable behavior. It happens because you didn’t take your own opinions, your ideas or even what you wanted, to add value to your engagement with the company.
Dreaming and dreaming and dreaming…?
You tend to start dreaming and visualizing yourself moving away from acting and doing something. You come up with ideas but you stop yourself before you even try!
Or do you try to bring yourself to work on the idea, then do it half heartedly and end up achieving nothing? So you give up quickly and because the data does not support your thought you are afraid to speak up and share the idea. You decide it’s not good enough, no one will like it, and it was a stupid idea anyway!
And years later when you look back on that thing you almost started, you realize there was something there. It wasn’t half as bad as what you thought at the time and you might have really accomplished something if you’d only shared and pursued it.
A Fulfilling and Satisfying job Eludes you 🙁
You end up doing a job with some company but you are living a life you aren’t all that proud of. You keep waiting to do that one thing you’re passionate about, you keep waiting to do that one thing that’s going to give you a sense of purpose and accomplishment. You start doing mundane stuff and become a cog in the wheel and stop your mind from being creative. You work hard and you do a good job but you also feel trapped inside yourself, putting on a show that someone else is directing.
Others go Ahead, Share your Ideas and Achieve!
You’ll eventually see someone else who had the same idea you had, but he shared it with the world, and got the same executed and moved ahead with the same. The company does after all like good ideas to be implemented.
“But it was the exact same idea!!” you say.
Yes, it was — but that person took it seriously. That person took himself seriously. That person said, “this is interesting to me, so it could be interesting to someone else,” and they did something with it.
You Start Disliking People who Share Ideas!
You resent people who do. You look at people who promote themselves and their ideas and you think they’re egotistical or ridiculous. Or you look at people who you admire and you lament the fact that you could never ever accomplish what they have.
You Start Doing Poor in your Daily life..
You sabotage yourself. You rush through a half-hearted execution and don’t give yourself the time you need to learn something new, or do it the right way. And when it doesn’t turn out the way you wanted, you decide it was a total waste of time. But you might have had a totally different outcome if you’d first accepted the fact that it might take time but that the time would be worth it because you believed in it.
It Does not end Well Unless you Share and Respect your Ideas!
You get depressed. You get angry and disappointed in yourself. You wonder why you haven’t done anything? You feel like you never will. You feel like it’s too late. But it’s not…!!
Every piece of every tiny little thing you’ve ever thought is filled with possibilities. You don’t know what; and that’s scary. You might not yet know how; and that’s hard. But when you take yourself seriously, you give yourself enough credit to know that you can figure it out. When you know in your heart that you and your ideas are important, you will give every idea you have, a fighting chance.
When you take yourself seriously, you will make others take you seriously. You will put your ideas out there. You won’t hide them. You won’t delete them. You will keep trying.
