Innovation requires new ideas and measured risk-taking but how does one stimulate innovative thinking from a group?
1. Getting comfortable with Risk - Determine within your work group how much risk is acceptable to you and to your employees. Involving the team to discuss this will help the team understand that measured risk-taking is necessary for innovation and will help everyone get comfortable with some agreed-upon level of risk for ideas discussed.
2. Communication and Reflection - Ask your work group to communicate before, during, and after decision-making processes about problems and/or mistakes. Reflecting on problems and mistakes and communicating about them as a group is a great way to brainstorm new approaches to solve challenges.
3. Ask Questions; Don't Give Answers - Use questioning techniques to understand your co-workers' frame of reference. For example, "Why do you think that happened?" or "What ideas do you have to resolve that problem?" are ways to find out what colleagues think about challenges in the workplace and asking them such questions empowers them to fix challenges and develop innovative ideas. You don't have to know all the answers! Open-ended questions can't be answered with yes or no, and they elicit information by encouraging members of a work group to talk.
People must be engaged to foster innovation and stimulate creative thinking. Encourage all team members to think through a process and elicit ideas by asking questions rather than always trying to have an answer (even when you know the answer). Getting everyone involved will help you maximize innovative ideas and over time, can help foster a culture of innovation as well as fully engaged employees eager to tackle problems and capable of doing so as a team comfortable with thinking outside of the box.
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