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If your company is following suit in a growing trend and starting an Innovation campaign, beware of the pitfalls.  Many companies assume they can create a few goals, advertise the idea, provide a bit of training, and expect that greatness will appear.

If it is unbridled success you are after, and you are trying to create a stark competitive advantage, it is critical to start by innovating your management strategy.  Asking employees to be innovative and contribute to the next competitive advantage while employing a management strategy left over from the Industrial Revolution is like asking your 1960’s percolating coffee maker to give you a triple shot skinny vanilla latte with extra foam.  You will be lucky to get a decent cup of joe and a monstrous mess.  However, if you are willing to entertain at least some components of a 21^st century management strategy, you will likely be blown away by the creativity that in many cases lies dormant.

Many modern companies employ management strategies based on command and control techniques designed to encourage employees to do only what they are asked, which translates into turning off their creativity as they enter the building.  Hierarchical organizations, not matter how progressive, generally promote a unidirectional flow of information.  The clock watching tendencies of most managers and requirements to account for every minute of every day, do nothing to build a culture of trust.  I know how it made me feel to be a grown woman (having put myself through graduate school, and learned how to do business in 6 different countries with little direction) forced to ask permission to take my child to the doctor and watching my “boss” decide whether or not it was convenient for him.

There is no shame, blame, or guilt intended here.  We’ve all been doing as we were taught in business school when in comes to organizing and managing companies.  The difference now is, we know there is a better way and with it comes higher productivity, greater enjoyment, and less turnover.

Without creativity, a collaborative flow of information in all directions, and trust, all attempts at suddenly becoming an innovative firm that is competitive in the ever-changing world of the 21^st century will likely fail.  The essential ingredient for creating an innovative work environment is the courage of the folks at the top to change the rules of the game.  With that one ingredient, everything else will come naturally.  Not without hard work and dedication, but without friction.  Your team will amaze you, inspire you, and keep you humble enough to savor every moment, even the ones that aren’t so great.  It is possible to create an environment where failure is understood to be a key to success and support is as normal as gossip is today.

If you want employees to think creatively, design solutions to fix problems beyond the ones you know about, collaborate, and generally bring their A-game, you must be willing to give them the freedom to do those things in their own way and with their own style.  People are only going to give you as much as you believe they can deliver and no more.  If you believe your team is invincible and you tell them often, then that is what they will aspire to be.