So now you have your Innovation Dream Team. Are you being as effective as possible using your current tools to communicate and collaborate with your team?
I’ve written about the importance of communication when it comes to change management and/or innovation. Below, I’ve listed some of the tools that I use because of their ease and effectiveness.
- Google Talk – I send very little email because it’s time consuming and too formal for the majority of conversations. Aside from instant messaging, the best features of Google Talk are: On / Off-the-Record Chatting, Free Voice and Video Chat & Instant File Transfers. Also, Google Talk has mobile apps for the most popular mobile OSes including iPhone, Blackberry and of course Android. If your group doesn’t have Gmail accounts, then you can easily sign up for one.
- Basecamp – 37signals has a nice package of collaborative tools that are perfect for any organization from bootstrapped to venture funded. Basecamp is their project management platform. It allows you to manage multiple projects, assign certain users to certain projects and milestones. The dashboard provides an easy to follow snapshot of everything that is going on within a project. My favorite part is that I can subscribe via RSS or email to the reminders, so I always know where everyone stands.
- Food / Drinks – Not “hi-tech,” but I’m a firm believer in getting away from my static habitat to increase productivity. With my laptop and a mobile phone, there is nothing I can’t get done from a coffee shop that I can’t get done from my office. Besides a change of scenery, it does 2 important things for my teams and me: 1) It provides an opportunity to talk one-on-one with team members about their concerns and/or accomplishments. People like to be known other than a name on a screen and this helps achieve buy-in. 2) Change management requires innovation and innovation requires new perspectives. A change of scenery always stirs my creative juices simply by having new surroundings.
What other tools are vital to your organization’s success?
Photo: liz burnunzio via flikr
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin
How do you lead innovation in an environment that is resistant to change?
Unless you work in a zoo or some place where people are the minority, then you will face resistance to change because people are inherently resistant to it. Innovation leaders understand how to manage change when people want to run from it.
I’ve been successful at several companies where innovation is a necessity; and the people inside them that survive adapt to the change that naturally comes from innovation. Some of my companies have changed their business model every quarter, month and even every week, so it becomes a necessity that your team adapt to change that naturally occurs from innovation in order to survive. The need for speed in change management varies from start-ups to corporations; however, these 5 factors will ensure successful change management regardless of size:
- Endorsements – Get true sponsorship for your idea from the top to the down. If you’re serious about your idea, then don’t settle for simply getting one or two sponsors. Make sure you have sponsorship from all the people that will be required to make the idea work. Always be prepared to sell your idea by showing its immediate benefits. If you are the “top dog,” then it’s your job to make sure the people you bring on to help you buy-in to your idea.
- Honest Communication – Typically, honest communication relates to something that you could read about in the self-help aisle. As far as change management is concerned, it relates to deadlines, realistic expectations and real needs. The success of innovation will come if communication is always open and timely. Priorities are constantly shifting inside of innovation endeavors, so deadlines are in constant flux. The person that doesn’t provide a realistic deadline will commit the crime not the person that has to change it.
- Employee Investment – A simple concept…but usually the hardest for leaders to execute. Let people show-off their strengths by taking over responsibility for their parts of the project. Trust them to succeed, and they (and you) will shine.
- Change Agents – #4 won’t happen without #3 happening first. The change agents are the ones that become the internal champions for your idea. Once they buy-in, they will become the best PR ever because they have true blood invested. In essence, they should become mini-yous.
- Culture – You either have it or you don’t. And if you don’t, it will make your job harder; but it’s crucial to the long-term success of your innovations. Culture is not something that can simply be created overnight. Culture takes time to grow. Steps 1 – 4 will lay the groundwork for your culture change and at the same time providing a blue print for a successful change management strategy.
Photo: ucumari via flickr
I just registered for this Cisco web conference on April 3rd. I’m excited about it. The conference will have some great minds speaking about making your business Web 2.0 (I hate that term) compatible. The conference will demonstrate how these emerging applications can be applied to any type of business. Some of the speakers include: Don Tapscott, Jeremiah Owyang, Robert Scoble and David Knight.
If you’re a small business owner in any industry, work at an ad agency or a newly formed emerging media department, then this will probably be beneficial for you to watch.
Check out the details here. It looks like they’ll have it up for you to view until December 31st, but I think you still need to register.
