Innovation in the workplace not only helps companies stay competitive and profitable, but they are also happier workplaces, with consistently higher results in terms of employee satisfaction and retention.

Leading organizations are now paying more attention to the advantages of encouraging innovation than ever before. Many companies now have chief innovation officers to help drive new improvements and systems. Of course, there's a big difference between wanting to become more innovative and actually doing it.

There's no one solution to how to encourage innovation. The method differs from company to company and depends on the workplace culture, inherent systems, and team members' talents and skills.

In this post, we'll take a look at 10 ways to encourage innovation in your organization.

The process you use to develop your strategic plan is as important as the plan itself. That’s why many organizations turn to the Hoshin Kanri approach, which focuses on creating a plan that takes into account both the daily management of the organization and the tactics necessary to reach those goals that will have the most significant impact. The result is a set of specific action plans and resources necessary to achieve your business breakthrough.

Although some organizations tweak the approach to meet their specific needs, most often the Hoshin Kanri planning process consists of the following seven steps.

Even before the pandemic, most American workers felt that they were being forced into wasteful or even counterproductive meetings regularly. According to a study by Korn Ferry, 51% of professionals reported that spending too much time in meetings and on calls distracts them from making an impact at work to some extent. Another 16% said that it was true to a great extent. A whopping 67% of workers said excessive meetings keep them from getting their best work done.

Think that the sudden work to remote work driven by COVID-19 means fewer meetings? Think again.

Modern leaders are fortunate to have a host of proven continuous improvement tools like DMAIC, Standard Work, kanban, Hoshin Kanri, and more. We owe a lot to those who pioneered Lean management and other methodologies that bake quality improvement into daily business processes.

These tools are available to everyone, but not all organizations that strive for improvement achieve it. Why is that?

It's because the tools alone are not enough. The deciding factor in whether or not CI can be achieved is based on the people. Results depend on how people think, what they believe is possible, and the decisions they make big and small. In short, without a culture that supports improvement, success is unlikely.

If you've struggled to get what you want out of your improvement program, culture is the first place to look for both problems and solutions. Here are four signs that a culture isn't conducive to improvement.

I received an interesting call a few weeks back from Bahnsen Miller, MD. Bahnsen is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Virginia Health System. He attended LSU School of Medicine and completed his residency training there. After residency training, he completed a quality improvement and patient safety fellowship at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge—this is where he learned about KaiNexus. Since then, Bahnsen has been working with residents and students on various quality improvement and patient safety initiatives.

He asked me if I had ever thought of using KaiNexus to help train physicians during their medical school and/or residency periods. It brought back a flood of memories from how my “improvement story” began.

Organizations turn to cross-functional teams for a variety of reasons. Almost everyone can agree that this type of collaboration is essential for innovation and business performance. By breaking down organizational silos, teams can pursue a goal more efficiently. Here are 11 reasons why you should use cross-functional teams.

1. Innovation

Fresh perspectives can lead to “ah-ha” moments and truly innovative ideas for improvement. The more familiar one is with a situation, the more difficult it becomes to recognize inefficient workarounds that have been baked into processes. A new set of eyes is sometimes all it takes to achieve a breakthrough.

Many employers put off hiring over the summer, hoping that the COVID-19 situation would improve, and office life would return to normal soon. Well, now that it's October and there still is no end in sight, more organizations are deciding to resume hiring even though everyone is still working remotely.

The transition to remote work has been tough enough on its own, but bringing on a new hire, getting them trained and acclimated to the culture without ever meeting them in person is a big ask. We've put together a few tips to help, if you find yourself in this situation. With a good plan and the right technology in place, it is entirely possible to welcome team members who will contribute to your organization's success even in these challenging times.

If you are striving to become a Lean organization, waste elimination is probably near the top of your list. In fact, Lean practitioners have identified very specific types of waste, known collectively as the 8 Wastes of Lean. Certain types of waste are really easy to spot and fix, while others can remain unnoticed. We thought it might be helpful to share some practical examples of how each type of waste occurs in business and in the larger world.

The principles of Lean and continuous improvement methodologies originated from manufacturing, but there’s no doubt that they have been applied to other industries quite successfully, such as nuclear energy. The nuclear industry believes that there is no defect or opportunity that is too small to go after, and there’s always room for improvement. This important principle is a cornerstone belief of what many refer to as a High-Reliability Organization or HRO. 

With the blistering speed of this summer’s news cycle, we can’t blame you if you’ve already forgotten about the single largest security incident in Twitter’s history that took place on July 15 but was a doozy. It was also a teachable moment for Twitter and every other organization that involves people and technology. 

What Happened?

Early in the day on July 15, 2020, Twitter’s automated detection systems flagged some suspicious activity. Several Twitter accounts with short handles, like @USA, @drug, @love, and others, seemed to be compromised. These short handles are valued among certain hacker communities, so Twitter knows to keep an eye out for unusual access. The appropriate people were notified, and they began looking into the issue. Security incidents like this are common when you have a platform with hundreds of millions of users.