After a couple of conversations I’ve had over the past few weeks and a bit of reflection on the utility event in May, I’m still struggling to move past this and so i thought i’d give it some more thought and capture a few more reflections.
Innovation is a term that seems to have become more and more familiar, especially with the advance of various technologies, but I do think it can be a little but stifled when it comes to the idea of innovating beyond tech and especially in the people space.
All innovation stems from people doesn’t it?
At present, it does.
You could argue that there will always be a trace back to someone’s thinking, an idea, an applied skill, an accident that created learning. I can’t imagine anyone disputing this and so why are we so quick to point our brains towards all of this amazing emergent tech whilst a lot of the same mental models that have been used to support things like people engagement are still running their course.
Disruption in this space seems to be few and far between.
The same management practices, renaming of the same frameworks, the same typologies.
They are all useful, of course, in the right context, but why do some companies seem to struggle to break out of the idea of these ‘tried and tested’ models. When I say tried and tested I mean we have used them extensively with some results, but are the results always tangible and/or sustainable?
How would you innovate in the people space?
I firmly believe that understanding the current set of paradigms that are in play across leadership and management is the start for this. I also believe that ‘innovation’ would be different in every context.
For example, if you don’t believe that having a strategy around ‘coaching’ would be a good idea in your business then you probably haven’t ever done it. If you looked to face into that and challenge your own belief, you may just attempt something innovative in your context.
I say your context because relating to that example, there are leaders out there who hold a belief that a coaching culture is a requirement and do have coaching as a core strategy. They would probably say thats not innovative, its just what you do.
That is just one example by the way.
What could you do differently to support getting the most from your workforce?
Is it our core beliefs that stifle innovation around people?
To build on the belief idea again, here’s a different example….
How important do you believe employee engagement is?
Is it as important as some of the other metrics you are looking at?
How connected do you believe they are?
I’m not sure there are strong beliefs held about the connection between how engaged employees are with the company vision/mission/purpose and the impact on the bottom line. If this was a strong belief there is no way I would see poor engagement measurement systems or an acceptance of anything less than 90%.
If you apply the same to productivity, we are fascinated by measuring this, scrutinising it and ‘innovating’ with tech to try and improve it. There are definitely some strong beliefs around how to increase productivity which don’t necessarily point to the idea of needing to innovate in the people space.
How strong is your belief in the connection between productivity and engagement?
How is that belief holding your focus in place?
How innovative are your plans to improve what might be called the ‘culture’ of your business?