0:00

Breaking down everyday workplace issues

0:03

and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just

0:03

the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.

0:10

Did we lose a patient?

0:11

No, that's just my lunch.

0:14

Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby.

0:20

He's James. So let's get started with a question.

0:20

How do we create a culture of innovation?

0:29

Well, the

0:32

cheap answer is with intent. When we're working

0:32

with organizations, the first thing that we tend

0:39

to do with them is to identify their priorities.

0:39

What are they focused on? What does success look

0:46

like for them? And typically it falls into one of

0:46

the five successes that we identify at the fifth

0:52

stage of our workplace culture hierarchy, which

0:52

we call strive. Are they striving for innovation,

1:00

collaboration, change management, internal

1:00

growth or customer acquisition? The two most

1:06

common things that our clients tend to strive

1:06

for are usually around internal growth and change

1:11

management. So is their goal to become an employer

1:11

of choice? Then we're going to focus on internal

1:16

growth. Do they have an emphasis as part of their

1:16

strategy on merger and acquisition? Then a culture

1:22

of change management and adaptability is going

1:22

to be our focus point. The one that we get asked

1:29

about most frequently tends to be that culture

1:29

of innovation. So to answer the actual question,

1:37

finally, after a roundabout ramblings, how

1:37

do you create a culture of innovation? Well,

1:44

again, it comes down to intent. And being able to

1:44

diagnose the root cause of the barriers that are

1:52

holding you back from a culture of innovation.

1:52

And a climate of complacency is one of the

1:59

most common barriers that we see to creating a

1:59

culture of innovation. So we have to investigate

2:05

the structural aspects of our business that

2:05

are reinforcing this idea of complacency.

2:13

Yeah, the thing that's really helpful for us, and

2:16

this might be a good thing for us just to

2:20

kind of mention in general. So we talk about a

2:20

lot of different ideas and we kind of show how

2:24

they kind of all tend to kind of fall back to the

2:24

workforce culture hierarchy. But a lot of that is,

2:30

again, so when we're working with organizations,

2:30

do we implement all of that various stuff all at

2:35

once? We're like, well, no. How we actually

2:35

kind of figure out the best path forward is

2:42

usually on what is it they want to strive for.

2:42

So when they hit the top of the hierarchy,

2:46

where is it that they want to go? And it tends

2:46

to be they've got a major sign of success. Again,

2:51

often it's around kind of adaptability and change

2:51

management, or it's around kind of like their

2:56

employer brand and kind of internal growth.

2:56

But one thing that we have been hearing more

3:02

especially recently, is around innovation. And

3:02

innovation doesn't just mean kind of the one thing

3:09

in the tech sector. Innovation can mean internal

3:09

innovations like improvements or efficiencies,

3:15

or moving towards a strength based approach to

3:15

work. Like if you listen to our last episode

3:20

about our spectrum program, we talked about kind

3:20

of the six roles in the strength based teams. That

3:26

movement towards that is innovation. It could

3:26

also be about external innovation. So things

3:32

like capturing new markets, developing

3:32

new products, building new strategies,

3:36

and all of this stuff requires a lot of the same

3:36

infrastructure, a lot of the same indicators, a

3:42

lot of the same components and kind of elements of

3:42

your culture that enable this level of innovation

3:50

and accepting this of kind of a continuous

3:50

improvement mindset. And really it's about,

3:58

are you able to dedicate your actual time to

3:58

looking for ways to be a little better today than

4:05

you were yesterday? And you're right. One of the

4:05

things that we tend to say is, well, if you want

4:13

to know what the big barrier or the sickness is

4:13

holding you back from innovation, it tends to be

4:24

if you have a climate of complacency. We say that

4:24

even if your workplace culture is good and you're

4:32

working towards a lot of the good infrastructural

4:32

pieces, you're walking up the hierarchy,

4:36

you've removed dissatisfaction, you're creating

4:36

psychological safety. Belongings is coming along.

4:42

You can still have a climate of complacency

4:42

even in those great workplaces, oftentimes.

4:49

Where we see the difference. And if you've been tracking with us at all, you've

4:51

heard us. Well, me most more so, probably ranting

4:57

about the difference between making people

4:57

happy is not what we're actually trying to do.

5:04

Right.

5:04

That is a nice side effect of creating a productive,

5:05

inclusive, profitable culture, but it's not

5:12

the outcome. And oftentimes you can have very low

5:12

job dissatisfaction, you can have psychological

5:21

safety, people can feel like they belong, and

5:21

you can still have high levels of complacency

5:27

in the workplace. People can be very happy

5:27

doing very little, pay them a good salary,

5:34

let them do very little, let them be complacent.

5:34

And yeah, you will have happy, not everybody,

5:39

but you will have happy employees. What we want,

5:39

rather than happiness, is we want people to be

5:48

engaged in the work. And this is the fundamental

5:48

difference between creating engaged employees and

5:57

merely engaging with people. If your focus

5:57

of your employee engagement strategy is to

6:03

make people happy, you probably are not

6:03

striving towards a culture of innovation.

6:11

Yeah, if happiness is

6:15

kind of where you think the end goal is, then you

6:15

could be creating a climate of complacency because

6:25

you're right, we are happy, we are comfortable. We

6:25

feel accepted. When we are complacent. That tends

6:35

to be kind of one of those things. Like all this

6:35

stuff, it's important to realize that there's no

6:39

simple answers and every answer requires a lot of

6:39

work. So that's just kind of general standard. But

6:47

it's the fact that if we're not really creating

6:47

engagement in employees, again, we did a previous

6:57

episode, a couple of episodes back about should

6:57

we do employee engagement? And a lot of the

7:01

crux of that was we shouldn't be trying to do

7:01

engagement. We should be creating the conditions

7:08

for engagement. And if you're not doing that, and

7:08

then the side effect of having, like James said,

7:16

low dissatisfaction, high psychological safety,

7:16

a good amount of belonging without creating

7:21

engagement in people is that you can start to see

7:21

the signs of the warning signs of complacency kind

7:26

of seeping in. So why don't I just talk about

7:26

what the warning signs for culture or sorry,

7:33

climate of complacency looks like and we can kind

7:33

of break them down individually. But sure, the

7:38

four warning signs of a climate of complacency are

7:38

comfortable and traditional methods. Phrases like,

7:46

this is how we've always done it. Rigid thinking,

7:46

a lack of awareness of what is happening outside

7:54

their environment, and always looking at the

7:54

extremes, finding the no being problem focused

8:01

rather than solution focused, and having

8:01

unconfident or low profile leadership,

8:07

where the don't rock the boat mentality is kind

8:07

of the law of the land. So those four warning

8:15

signs really are what you need to look for to see

8:15

if you actually do have a climate of complacency.

8:21

Yeah, I think you just listed four of my pet peeves.

8:22

Well, okay, let's look at them one at a time. The

8:31

idea of comfortable and traditional methods, this

8:31

whole idea that we do it this way because we've

8:40

done it this way because were told to do it this

8:40

way 20 years ago. The person who trained me to

8:48

do it this way. So the person I train is going

8:48

to be trained the exact same way. It's such a

8:53

frustrating attitude for if you are bringing in,

8:53

especially bringing in new people into a role,

9:03

you want people who are hungry, who are going to

9:03

come in with new ideas, who are going to look at

9:10

their job and the way things are done with

9:10

a new perspective, and this mentality will

9:18

shut them down faster than just about anything

9:18

else. Having people ask the question of, well,

9:25

why do we do things this way? Is an excellent

9:25

thing. That's something that you want,

9:29

and you should be able to defend that with more

9:29

than. Well, because we've always done it this way.

9:37

And I mean, the idea of. So

9:41

one of the kind of psychological impacts that kind

9:41

of give this idea of comfortable and traditional

9:48

methods kind of makes it more prominent is the

9:48

implicit bias to convention where we have an

9:57

overly favorable opinion of what has worked before

9:57

or what has been the normal status quo. And,

10:06

I mean, it's something where we tend to look at,

10:06

again, convention and kind of traditional methods

10:14

with road colored glasses. We only tend to see the

10:14

uncomplicated results of it rather than looking at

10:22

it objectively with kind of a critical reflection.

10:22

And it's something that we're all guilty of an

10:32

implicit bias to convention. That's why we kind

10:32

of all sit in the same chairs in the meeting room

10:37

and why we kind of tend to drive the same way to

10:37

work every day. So part of that's built into us.

10:43

But when it comes to our jobs, it's important for

10:43

us to think critically. Often when we do a lot of

10:50

organizational kind of change and organizational

10:50

kind of improvements, one of the first things

10:55

we always go to is we go to critical thinking is

10:55

going to be the first thing we have to really kind

10:59

of infuse into your workplace. And challenging

10:59

comfortable and traditional methods for their

11:06

merit is an excellent way to start at shaking

11:06

kind of away from the climate of complacency.

11:14

Yeah, this one is huge.

11:18

If you are not able to articulate the why behind

11:18

your processes and you default to. I don't know,

11:29

it's just the way that we've done things that

11:29

in my mind is a red flag. That's something that

11:34

you should be. Does it automatically mean that

11:34

everybody in your workplace is complacent? No,

11:40

but it is a pretty good indication that you are

11:40

not striving towards something greater than.

11:47

So the next one is rigid thinking. So this really is kind

11:49

of about not fully being aware of the kind of

11:57

complexities that happen kind of outside of our

11:57

workplace or not being kind of up to date. A lot

12:03

of the value of new strategies or new programs and

12:03

kind of having this polarized view of everything

12:12

is either black or white, good or bad. There's

12:12

no kind of almost like appreciation of the gray.

12:19

Yeah, I see it in the rigid thinking. I see it as

12:20

very much when presented with a new idea,

12:28

it's an inability to look at

12:28

things through others perspectives.

12:32

Right.

12:35

And that is a significant limiting factor.

12:35

You're never going to be able to innovate or

12:42

grow or try new things. If you cannot take a

12:42

step back from your own current understanding

12:49

and at least recognize that there's

12:49

value in other people's perspectives,

12:54

that there could be value in doing things slightly

12:54

differently. This rigid thinking, it ends up with

13:00

tunnel vision. People put up blinders and

13:00

they only see what's directly in front of

13:07

them and they won't turn their head to the left

13:07

or right to get a larger, broader perspective.

13:13

Yeah. And almost like the default thinking

13:18

is if it's not an absolute yes, then it has to be

13:18

an absolute no. Or if it's not an absolute good,

13:25

then it has to be an absolute bad. And it's one

13:25

of those things where the willingness to actually,

13:35

you know what it is? It's really about

13:35

being kind of closed minded. If you're

13:39

not open to possibilities, open to embracing the

13:39

complexities of a new venture or something new,

13:48

and you're only ever stuck in kind of

13:48

the kind of clear box you've laid out

13:54

for yourself and this whole black or white

13:54

piece of it, then it's really hard to again

14:00

be thinking critically about how right now could

14:00

be good, but maybe the new thing could better.

14:10

And it relates very closely and ties in really nicely with the

14:11

next point around finding the no. Right. We often

14:18

see these two things go hand in hand with people

14:18

who are rigid thinkers who will not expand that

14:25

perspective or see things as all good, all bad

14:25

also tend to find the problems with every new

14:31

idea. Every new idea is not a perspective of, oh,

14:31

that's an interesting idea. Let's explore it for

14:38

why and look at how it could be accomplished. It's

14:38

a. Well, that's not going to work here because we

14:45

don't do things that way. Or no, that will never

14:45

work because we tried something similar 20 years

14:51

ago and it failed. Always finding a reason to

14:51

say no will kill any opportunity for innovation.

15:00

Yeah, and like you say, it's the idea

15:04

of being problem focused when something comes

15:04

your way. It's like, well, trying to find the

15:10

problems so you can be justified in shutting it

15:10

down. I'm sure everybody can think of a time they

15:20

got excited about the possibility of something new

15:20

or something kind of innovative and brought it to

15:26

a superior. And you could tell they were really

15:26

struggling to find a way to shut it down. You

15:34

know what I mean? And that really is the kind of

15:34

finding the no when you're preferring that finding

15:40

the problem and a reason to say no over finding.

15:40

Well, that would trade one problem for another.

15:50

But that other problem might actually be easier

15:50

to solve and trying to figure out ways that you

15:57

could, at least theoretically see the improvement

15:57

or see the value of, which is again, more of a

16:02

solution-focus. Finding the no is one thing that

16:02

people tend to really kind of grab onto like,

16:10

oh yeah, that's what that's called. When they

16:10

are looking for a reason to shut me down, they're

16:14

trying to find the no. And you're right, it does

16:14

kind of go hand in hand with the rigid thinking.

16:19

Yeah. All of these,

16:22

obviously we're talking about interrelated

16:22

concepts because they all relate back to.

16:28

Have you inadvertently created this climate

16:28

of complacency and the problem focused rigid

16:38

thinking? All of them are great indicators.

16:38

Those are two in my mind that are just very

16:48

few times am I willing to say something is just

16:48

blatantly bad. I usually like to hedge my bets

16:55

and talk about there's context for rigid thinking

16:55

and always finding having a problem focus to new

17:04

ideas or to your job, that's bad. It is limiting

17:04

you, it is limiting your company. And these

17:11

are behaviors that can be addressed, but it's

17:11

going to require a lot of coaching and support.

17:18

Which kind of brings us to the last one,

17:21

which is around unconfident, unprepared or low

17:21

profile leadership. And one of the things that

17:29

we see the most is when it comes to this,

17:29

doesn't tend to be that the leader is very

17:38

much trying to keep everything super traditional.

17:38

It's still the 90s, so we can act like it. That's

17:46

never the case. It's more they're unprepared

17:46

or they're not confident in their ability to

17:54

usher in this new innovation. So sometimes

17:54

it looks like, well, let's not rock the boat,

18:01

let's not put our nexus out there because largely,

18:01

and this again, is usually kind of when stuff kind

18:10

of bubbles from up to middle management. And

18:10

middle management tends to be where this tends

18:15

to tend to happen the most because they're

18:15

the least prepared, the least trained, the

18:20

least empowered to bring something like this to

18:20

fruition. So it's often more of we don't have the

18:31

infrastructure role in place with our leadership

18:31

to allow for innovation. So the complacency kind

18:37

of is stopped by leadership because leaders are

18:37

not empowered to bring stuff, make stuff happen.

18:43

And this has a direct, like one

18:46

of the biggest influencers on this is whether or

18:46

not there's psychological safety in the workplace,

18:52

because if people, especially if you bring an idea

18:52

to your manager and they have to try to sell it up

19:02

to somebody else, it's on them. Are they worried

19:02

about wearing that? Are they worried that if they

19:08

present this idea and their boss doesn't like

19:08

it, that they are going to be penalized in some

19:14

way for that, either formally or informally.

19:14

If they do actually go for it and it doesn't

19:19

work out. Is failure an option or is failure? You

19:19

fail, you're gone. There are a lot of environments

19:30

where innovation is stifled because people don't

19:30

feel that they can try something new and it not

19:39

work out and it not negatively affect their job.

19:39

Now, I'm not talking about trying something like

19:49

completely mishandling a situation and it being

19:49

your fault and gross negligence and these types

19:55

of things. I'm talking can people try doing things

19:55

a different way and fail and not lose their job?

20:03

Well, one thing that is kind of a

20:06

bit ironic is the fact that where we see a lot of

20:06

the warning signs of a climate of complacency tend

20:14

to be industries that are the most competitive,

20:14

that require innovation to get ahead. And it's a

20:24

weird duality when there's this kind of idea of,

20:24

well, if you put your neck out there and you try

20:32

something and you fail, you're out of here.

20:32

Because we are too competitive of a workplace

20:37

or too competitive of an industry to take a step

20:37

back. That is such a almost counterintuitive way

20:46

of thinking. Yeah, but it tends to be a common

20:46

way of thinking. It's like, well, we're too

20:51

competitive to make any mistakes, so we're not

20:51

going to try anything that might not work out.

20:57

Whether our margins are too tight or there's too many competitors

20:58

in our industry, we're going head to head with

21:03

another company for market share. Whatever the

21:03

circumstances around that competitive nature

21:12

of the industry, if you're not willing to take

21:12

any risks, how can you get ahead anyways? Yeah,

21:20

but it's usually not a mentality of the senior

21:20

leaders who understand that risks need to be taken

21:29

to get ahead. It tends to be, as you said, kind

21:29

of in that mid level manager role where they don't

21:35

feel that they are supported to try new things.

21:35

Other people may be supported to try new things,

21:42

the company may be supported to try new

21:42

things. But me in my role as a manager,

21:47

as a team leader, no, I need to just

21:47

keep my head down and do what I'm told.

21:51

Yeah, exactly. And that

21:54

really does tend to be, again, what we mean by the

21:54

unconfident, unprepared or low profile leadership

22:04

is just that we need to make sure that, again,

22:04

this is why we kind of say that you have to have

22:09

the infrastructural pieces of the hierarchy

22:09

of our workplace culture hierarchy. Because

22:16

if you want to kind of, again, make sure

22:16

that these things are consistently applied,

22:20

that they're ingrained into your workplace, into

22:20

your everyday, then the systematic approach of

22:26

using the hierarchy is a good way to kind of

22:26

know what foundations you have to build in

22:31

order to kind of build off of. But the idea of

22:31

if you want to have the kind of leadership that

22:38

will be able to overcome complacency and try new

22:38

things and be innovative, then you have to make

22:46

sure that the freedom to fail and autonomy and

22:46

psychological safety is available to everybody,

22:55

not just some leaders, not just some employees,

22:55

but to all people. Because you never know where

23:01

the opportunities for innovation is going to

23:01

come from. Because like we say, innovation

23:04

isn't just external, it's also internal about

23:04

internal improvements, creating efficiencies,

23:08

the strength based approach to work. So there

23:08

has to be, again, this idea of identifying the

23:15

signs of the climate of complacency. But part

23:15

of it is if you take the systematic approach

23:24

of a workplace culture hierarchy, then you're

23:24

creating the conditions that will make sure

23:29

that these things aren't reinforced. There is

23:29

an opportunity to kind of move past these as

23:36

maybe old behaviors need to be revised as

23:36

opposed to being how everyone survives in

23:41

their workplace. Because if survival mode is all

23:41

that you have, then innovation is off the table.

23:47

Yeah, well, if everybody's in survival mode,

23:51

you will never achieve that culture of innovation.

23:51

And again, we are talking about this from what is

23:58

your outcome that you're trying to strive towards?

23:58

What is that success that you're trying to strive

24:04

towards? And if it is striving towards having a

24:04

culture of innovation where everybody is kind of

24:12

moving forward, trying to better in their role,

24:12

making the company better than it was yesterday,

24:19

bringing improvements and suggestions for how

24:19

we can be more efficient, be more profitable,

24:26

maybe bring in new ideas and concepts for

24:26

products, whatever that looks like. That success

24:33

needs to be stated from the beginning. And then

24:33

everything that you do through each of the stages

24:40

of the hierarchy needs to be with intent through

24:40

that lens. And I mean, we're kind of giving you a

24:47

peek behind the screen of how we approach our own

24:47

consulting work because you have to have an end in

24:57

mind before you start or else you're just going

24:57

to be going everywhere. I mean, if you've been

25:02

tracking with us for any period of time, you've

25:02

heard us talk about a lot of different concepts,

25:08

a lot of different ideas within each stage

25:08

of the hierarchy. Well, how do you know which

25:14

ideas to implement its investigation and

25:14

the outcome that you're trying to achieve.

25:21

Absolutely. So we're giving away kind of

25:24

some trade secrets here, but I'm sure that nobody

25:24

listening is minding that. So we talked about the

25:35

signs of a climate of complacency. Let's move into

25:35

what are the indicators of innovation. You want to

25:43

know the signs of the climate of complacency so

25:43

you can resolve them. But once they're resolved,

25:51

you also have to now start to create

25:51

the indicators. The innovation is not

25:56

just what you're striving for, but is actually

25:56

accepted and is actually part of the environment

26:03

that you're trying to create. The culture that

26:03

you're trying to build prioritizes innovation.

26:08

Well, and it's defining it. Right. It's taking innovation from a

26:09

buzzword to what are we actually striving towards?

26:15

Yeah. All right, I'll break down the four indicators of innovation

26:20

and then I think we'll quickly kind of

26:20

talk about each of them individually.

26:23

Sure.

26:23

So the first one is making failing a part of the plan. This

26:24

is about dedicating some resources, some time,

26:31

some effort into things that may fail and

26:31

being okay with that outcome. It's about

26:38

mitigating risk. Are you doing your homework?

26:38

Are you looking for ways to collaborate? Are

26:44

you finding a maximum utility of your efforts to

26:44

allow for the mitigation of any type of effort

26:54

that might fail? Accepting number three, accepting

26:54

that unfinished is the new normal. So sometimes

27:02

about being action focused is about jumping off

27:02

with something and doing the best that you can,

27:09

but realizing that it's not about check the box,

27:09

move on to the next piece. It's about things need

27:14

to evolve and to be adapt and to be constantly

27:14

modified. Like continuous improvement doesn't

27:21

happen, they move on to the next thing.

27:21

It's about looking for little improvement

27:24

opportunities kind of all the way. And then

27:24

number four is to have confident leadership,

27:33

someone that owns mistakes, people who share

27:33

success, and it being expected that teams will

27:39

be empowered to do work and to innovate. So

27:39

those are the four indicators of innovation.

27:45

And what I like about those. So starting,

27:49

like making failing part of the plan, it sounds od

27:49

to say we plan to fail, but if you understand that

28:01

anything new inherently has risk associated

28:01

with it, and we want to make allowance for,

28:09

we want people to try something new. If you want

28:09

people to try something new, then you have to

28:15

account for the possibility of failure. If failure

28:15

is not an option, then you cannot try something

28:21

new. And it's really that simple. It's a simple

28:21

concept that can be very difficult to embody.

28:31

Well, I think here is a good way to

28:34

think about it. So either failing is a, you know

28:34

that failing is an option and is something that we

28:47

need to plan for, or complacency is an option and

28:47

something that we need to plan for. You're kind

28:55

of accepting one or the other, you're accepting

28:55

the possibility of failure, or you're accepting

28:59

the inevitability of complacency. If you don't

28:59

choose one, you're choosing complacency, really.

29:12

A lack of choice is still choosing. Avoiding

29:13

the choice is still choosing.

29:17

Yeah, exactly. So it's one of those things where it has

29:18

to just be the fact that we are going to prepare,

29:27

and this is why we move on to this number two,

29:27

which is mitigating risk. So if we accept the

29:33

failing as part of the plan, but then number two

29:33

is we have to make sure that we're mitigating

29:38

the risk of that failure. And there are lots of

29:38

great different ways to mitigate. There's ideas

29:44

of trying to use the concept of maximum utility,

29:44

making sure that you've done your due diligence.

29:49

One of the things that we often, again, going back

29:49

to a past episode about Chaos solutions, is chaos

29:58

solutions are what happens when you do something

29:58

and you fail and you didn't do your. Homework,

30:05

trying to implement something new without creating

30:05

the structural boundaries for it to. Be successful

30:10

or fully understanding the complexity of what

30:10

you're doing. So there's that part, but then

30:15

there's also look for ways to collaborate. Are

30:15

there ways that you might not have to eat all of

30:20

the costs or hire a whole new team or whatever

30:20

it is. Can collaboration be utilized in a way

30:27

to kind of leverage that? So there are different

30:27

things that we can do to kind of mitigate risk.

30:32

We subscribe to a project management approach that

30:32

we call the dream method that allows you to kind

30:38

of have this process of instituting something

30:38

that is going to be a bit unfinished, but with

30:48

intention and allowing for constant modifications

30:48

and adaptation. So you're getting the most out

30:53

of all your steps before you're. And you're not

30:53

stuck in analysis paralysis and waiting to kind of

30:58

everything to be perfect conditions before you do

30:58

anything. So there are strategies and approaches

31:02

that do really help, but part of it too is are

31:02

you intentionally trying to mitigate that risk?

31:10

And I think that leads perfectly into

31:10

the, like one thing that you said there

31:13

leads perfectly into the third point

31:13

around unfinished is the new normal.

31:19

Right.

31:20

You mentioned one thing that's

31:23

going to hold you back from doing anything new is

31:23

analysis paralysis. This idea that there's always

31:31

more research that can be done, there's always

31:31

more data that you can collect. But at some point,

31:38

you need to accept that you will never have

31:38

the perfect plan. It doesn't matter how much

31:48

you try to prepare. The moment you implement

31:48

a plan, something is going to happen that you

31:54

did not account for and being able to adjust.

31:54

Understanding that your plan is unfinished when

32:01

you start implementing it, and that you need

32:01

to adapt, that you need to be willing to not

32:09

rigidly adhere to what you thought was the perfect

32:09

solution, that you can respond to conditions as

32:19

they come to new ideas, as you start to develop

32:19

or implement this new idea, this is essential to

32:29

having doing anything new. I'm sure if you're

32:29

listening to this in your workplace, you've

32:37

tried some sort of, you've pitched an idea, you've

32:37

tried something new, you've developed a plan, and

32:44

you've started to implement it. I have never asked

32:44

this question and gotten a response where people

32:52

have said, yes, when I start it and implement it,

32:52

things absolutely went exactly as I planned them

33:01

to at every stage of my plan went off without a

33:01

hitch. If we're being honest, that doesn't happen.

33:08

No, that's a fairytale.

33:10

That's a fairytale. And this idea that

33:10

perfectionism will kill innovation.

33:18

And one of the other things, too, that I like to kind of also kind of put

33:19

into this idea of unfinished as a new normal

33:25

is sometimes it's also about temporary talent.

33:25

Right. So one of the things when we're talking

33:33

about what this actually looks like when

33:33

we're implementing this stuff in real life,

33:39

one of the ideas around interim leadership

33:39

or fractional expertise, these are things

33:45

that can be very helpful because traditional HR

33:45

people don't always love this idea of interim

33:55

executive and fractional help because things

33:55

aren't finished, boxes aren't checked. So this

34:00

idea of having access to people who, for a limited

34:00

time or for a limited capacity, can bring in what

34:08

you need for the time that you have them, or

34:08

be able to have access to people in emergent

34:15

conversations and have emergent efforts. So the

34:15

idea of boxes being checked and moving on to the

34:23

next thing is kind of one of the things that runs

34:23

counter to innovation. If you're a box checker, we

34:33

do one thing before we move on to the next thing.

34:33

That approach is very counterintuitive to have.

34:41

An innovative solution in that type of

34:42

structured, rigid environment.

34:47

Yeah, absolutely. Which brings us to kind of the last

34:47

idea, which is around confident leadership and

34:53

this is really about the idea of you need to,

34:53

again, have the psychological safety and you

34:59

need to have kind of the support behind you

34:59

to own the mistakes that you make, to be able

35:03

to articulate how success wasn't created by a

35:03

solo person. They need to share in that level

35:12

of success and that you're giving the teams what

35:12

they need. You're empowering them to be successful

35:18

and you're powering them to think creatively and

35:18

to think critically. And you really are accepting

35:25

that unfinished as a new normal. You are trying

35:25

to look at different ways to mitigate risk and

35:29

you are trying to allow for failure just to be

35:29

part of the plan. And this comes from someone

35:37

that's confident in themselves, in how they lead,

35:37

confident in how they manage others and how they

35:42

make stuff happen with their employees, and also

35:42

that they know that they're next on the chopping

35:50

block every single time they try something

35:50

even remotely outside the traditional norm.

35:55

Leadership is such a linchpin for culture.

36:03

Yeah.

36:04

The way that leaders in your

36:07

organization approach some of these key factors

36:07

is really going to have a significant influence

36:17

over the success or failure of new initiatives.

36:17

And if you are not the final authority on these

36:25

decision maker, on trying anything new, being able

36:25

to, if you are a manager, part of your job is also

36:35

empowering your team and protecting them. Yes.

36:35

That ends up, you end up being the shield and you

36:40

may end up taking some of the brunt of this if the

36:40

higher ups do not necessarily subscribe to. This

36:48

idea of failure is something that's not inherently

36:48

bad. But it's important for you to understand that

36:56

if you want your teams to innovate, if you want

36:56

your employees to look at their jobs as a way of

37:07

improving themselves as well as the company, these

37:07

are fundamental pieces that need to be in place.

37:15

And it's important to really understand

37:19

that these indicators of innovation are things

37:19

that can be in your workplace right now. I mean,

37:26

it doesn't have to be as formal as the language we

37:26

are using. And sometimes it's a matter of, again,

37:32

thinking critically about kind of your everyday,

37:32

do you have kind of this unspoken mentality of,

37:38

well, we'll try this out for a little while and

37:38

we'll see how it's working and then we'll adapt

37:42

it if we need it or we'll abandon it if we realize

37:42

that it's not worth the effort. So sometimes it is

37:49

a matter of just knowing that what this stuff kind

37:49

of looks like. Because the idea of unfinished is

37:59

a new normal. Sometimes seeing that in your

37:59

workplace as things like, are a lot of draft

38:07

copies of ideas or reports shared before they're

38:07

submitted? Is the term like working document a

38:15

common presence in your workplace or temporary

38:15

schedules? So sometimes it's a matter of just kind

38:23

of looking at your workplace kind of through this

38:23

little bit of a lens. Do you see some of these

38:28

things? Whether they're warning signs for the

38:28

climate of complacency or they're the indicators

38:32

of innovation, but being aware of them, knowing

38:32

kind of what these little things might mean,

38:40

could give you a good perspective of your

38:40

workplace. But I think that we also have to

38:44

reinforce the fact that these signs are very

38:44

helpful. But if your workplace is not kind of

38:55

following through on the stages of the workplace

38:55

culture of hierarchy, then Innovation may not have

39:04

the impact that you want, and the complacency may

39:04

be potentially worse than it might look. Because,

39:10

again, you want to make sure that you're removing

39:10

job dissatisfaction. You're creating psychological

39:15

safety, that people feel accepted and that

39:15

they belong, and that employees are engaged,

39:22

creating engagement. Sorry. In motivation

39:22

and enthusiasm in employees while you're

39:26

striving for innovation. Because if you are in a

39:26

workplace or in an industry that is competitive,

39:34

that is emergent, that is trying to bring

39:34

something new to stand above your competitors,

39:43

then all of this stuff is relevant

39:43

to you. And honestly, I can't think

39:46

of too many industries that don't fall

39:46

in at least one of those categories.

39:49

Yeah. And I think we've done an excellent

39:53

job of describing a culture of innovation and

39:53

a climate of complacency. I think we still have

40:04

an opportunity to answer the question, how do we

40:04

actually build it? And we've touched on it a few

40:11

times, and it's probably not going to come as a

40:11

surprise to you that we're going to say that you

40:18

need to approach your workplace culture through

40:18

the framework of the hierarchy. It starts with

40:27

that foundational compliance level where we're

40:27

trying to remove job dissatisfaction. Because

40:33

if people are actively upset with the factors

40:33

of the workplace, nothing else really matters.

40:42

Right? If wages are terrible, if there's no safety

40:42

provisions, if employees feel that the company

40:52

doesn't care about their wellness or that there's

40:52

no job security, it doesn't matter what else you

41:00

do. Everything lives and dies on those factors

41:00

of the workplace. So you need to be competitive,

41:07

sufficient, and equitable in those areas. First,

41:07

remove job dissatisfaction, and then you can start

41:13

to work towards psychological safety, which

41:13

one of those key fundamental components of

41:20

psychological safety is that people feel that

41:20

they can fail, that they can raise a new idea,

41:28

speak up about opportunities without fear of

41:28

reprisal, and then they can try something new

41:34

without failure being the grounds for dismissal.

41:34

Or if they try something new and it doesn't work

41:45

out perfectly, that it's not going to hamper

41:45

their career opportunities from there. Yes,

41:52

we need the inclusion stage where people

41:52

actually feel like they belong. But if we're

42:01

looking specifically at the lens of a culture of

42:01

innovation, where we want to go next is around.

42:08

There has to be a level of autonomy in the workplace, and it's

42:10

one of the fundamental components to creating

42:17

engagement in people is providing them with

42:17

limited freedoms within operational requirements,

42:24

creating the fence around what people can do,

42:24

because that's how new ideas are formed. If

42:30

people know that they are free to explore within

42:30

whatever parameters you give them, then they will

42:40

be able to come to you with new ideas. So how do

42:40

you create a culture of innovation? It starts with

42:50

the workplace culture hierarchy and starting

42:50

with compliance, making sure that you're not

42:56

actively creating job dissatisfaction and then

42:56

focusing on psychological safety and engagement.

43:04

Yeah, and the idea

43:07

of when you're working on kind of inclusion,

43:07

you want to ensure that you're providing the

43:12

diversity of perspective. When you're looking

43:12

at engagement, you're right, it's autonomy.

43:16

But also the idea of strength based teams, which

43:16

we talked about in our last episode, that can be

43:21

a powerful way to really to show innovation is

43:21

by allowing people to kind of do more of what

43:27

they're good at. You'll see stuff kind of. Kind

43:27

of bubble to the top. There are pieces, again,

43:30

these are things we focus on specifically when the

43:30

goal is to work towards a culture of innovation.

43:36

This is kind of the lens that we view our work

43:36

through. But all this stuff needs to be present.

43:42

You need to create the foundations so that way

43:42

the indicators of innovation will actually take

43:47

off. All right, so I think this has been a good

43:47

conversation. I think I'll do a bit of a summary.

43:53

Sure.

43:54

So the question was, how do we create a culture of innovation? Well,

43:56

whether that innovation is internal things like

44:01

improvement efficiencies or strength based

44:01

work, or whether they're external innovations

44:06

like new markets or new products or even new

44:06

strategies, we have to have this continual

44:13

improvement mindset where we try and be a

44:13

little bit better today than were yesterday.

44:19

But the things to look out for about how your

44:19

organization is doing in terms of innovation is

44:24

you need to understand the warning signs of a

44:24

climate of complacency, which is a comfortable

44:31

and traditional methods are prioritized. Rigid

44:31

thinking is kind of the law of the land. The way

44:39

that we handle suggestions and ideas is we try

44:39

to find the no and we tend to have unconfident,

44:46

ill prepared or low profile leadership with

44:46

a don't rock the boat mentality. If we find

44:53

that we can either avoid those or resolve those we

44:53

want to move towards the indicators of innovation,

45:00

then those are making failing part of the plan,

45:00

where we need to prepare to try something new,

45:06

but accept that failure may be an outcome and be

45:06

okay with that. We need to mitigate risks by doing

45:11

our homework and looking for ways to try and get

45:11

the most use of our efforts using maximum utility.

45:17

We need to recognize that unfinished should

45:17

be the new normal where we are action focused,

45:23

but we're open to adaptation and modification,

45:23

and that we need to have confident leaders who

45:29

will own mistakes, who will share successes,

45:29

and who will empower their teams. But for all

45:34

this stuff to pan out, we need to have built a

45:34

strong foundation by trying to climb the workplace

45:40

culture hierarchy, by incorporating things

45:40

like the freedom to fail, encouraging autonomy,

45:45

looking at diversity of perspective, and allowing

45:45

for strength based teams to kind of be a way that

45:50

we can get more out of the people that we're

45:50

working with. A culture of innovation is an

45:54

excellent concept for or addition to strive

45:54

for in pretty much almost every industry. But

46:01

it's not something that you can do simply, and

46:01

it's not something you can do with a checkbox

46:05

mentality. Okay, so that about does it for us.

46:05

For a full archive of our podcast and access to

46:13

the video versions hosted on our YouTube channel,

46:13

visit www.roman3.ca/podcast thanks for joining us.

46:20

For more information on topics like these,

46:23

don't forget to visit us at www.roman3.ca. Side

46:23

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