For every business, finding a way to innovate should be the ultimate goal. Some will wait for lightning to strike and running with an idea that could make huge changes. It’s not a bad approach, especially if you do catch onto something good and take it as far as you can.
However, many of the biggest and most successful businesses across a myriad of industries find themselves specifically seeking ways of cultivating innovation. While an innovative idea can’t be forced, it can be coaxed into existence with the right conditions in place. Here, we’re looking at how some of the greatest innovators collect and act on all the ideas presented by their teams, and what other businesses can do to follow a similar path.
Examples of Great Innovators
Whenever the topic of innovation and innovative companies come up in the realms of business, the first name to come up is often Apple. Since the turn of the millennium, few companies have done so much to change our everyday lives as Apple, with continued showcases of their innovation making them a colossus of a company. Yet, Apple continues to adopt a functional structure specifically to cultivate innovation. This angle of encouraging diverse collaboration under one roof has been fruitful elsewhere, too.
LEGO is the prime example of this. Not only is there time set aside for employees to work on whatever designs they want to follow, but they also encourage meaningful conversation between diverse groups within the company. Collaboration is the emphasis at the Danish giant. As shown by their licensed goods, ideas from beyond their core sphere are encouraged and often taken on board. Thinking outside the box is invariably key.
Beginning to think outside the box begins by taking something that exists and working out how it can be made better for customers. This is the approach that Big Time Gaming took when they innovated the long-standing slots scene with the advent of Megaways. With this, commonplace 10, 20, or even 1,000-payline games became games with over 100,000 ways to win. Since their pioneering effort, they’ve licensed Megaways out freely, resulting in a huge range of creative games to enhance the brand and to infuse even more ways to leverage the mechanic.
Creating an Environment for Innovators
As the examples above show, businesses that end up innovating tend to lean towards mixing together their experts, encourage meaningful discussion, continue to be open to ideas, and try to make any area of a product better for customers. It’s all about applying novel solutions to either a problem or an aspect that needs improvement.
As is detailed in this piece by Inc. you don’t need to be a generational genius like Steve Jobs to innovate; you just need to solve a problem that you know particularly well. Getting to the point of solving a problem can be eased greatly by infusing the expertise and ideas of outsiders. Collaboration will bring together the diversity of minds that’s needed to think outside the box.
Ultimately, an environment that can cultivate innovation is one that allows the free movement of ideas between all of your access points of expertise. Ideas can strike at any moment. As a business, you just need to make sure that they can be followed up on.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
