{"id":13,"date":"2018-10-25T16:33:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T16:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/?p=13"},"modified":"2019-01-10T02:23:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T02:23:22","slug":"if-you-want-a-collaborative-and-innovative-organization-start-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/if-you-want-a-collaborative-and-innovative-organization-start-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Part I: If You Want a Collaborative and Innovative Organization\u2026 Start HERE!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If You Want a Collaborative and Innovative Organization\u2026 Start HERE!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you been in business for a long time?  Do you overhear comments \nfrom your employees like these: \u201cWe have always done it this way\u201d, \u201cWe \ntried that before\u201d, \u201cThat\u2019s not how we do things here\u201d, \u201cI am afraid it \nwon\u2019t work\u201d or even \u201cThat will cost too much\u201d?  Have you also noticed \nthat your employees don\u2019t know how to answer questions like \u201cWhat do our\n customers expect from us?\u201d or \u201cWhat do our customers think of our \nproducts?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Start here…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. TRUST YOUR EMPLOYEES<\/strong>: Trust is a powerful word but\n can be scary at times because if you install your trust in others, it \ncould feel as if you are either less in control or less in touch with \nwhat is going on.  Don\u2019t believe this.  Start by trusting yourself as a \nleader who has hired and trained the right people.  If you can do this \nunequivocally, then empowering them to make decisions will be much \neasier. <\/li>
  2. EMPOWER YOUR EMPLOYEES<\/strong>: Now that you trust your \nemployees \u2013 empower them to own their responsibilities and their \nrelationship with your customers.  Empower them to make decisions.  \nEmpower them to work directly with customers to meet their needs.  This \nneeds to apply to all levels of the organization from your executive \nteam to your call center reps! The more employees feel empowered, the \nmore ownership they will take and the more likely they are to take \ninitiative and start thinking out-of-the-box to move the business \nforward.<\/li>
  3. BE BOTH VISIBLE & APPROACHABLE:<\/strong> Lots of \nexecutives say they have an open door policy but saying it and living it\n are two different things. First \u2013 you should actually keep your door \nopen!  Find time every day to walk through the work area.  This is not \nface time.  This should be productive time.  Stop and talk with the \nsearch marketing team or pop into the creative studio to ask what they \nare working on, look at it with them and provide some helpful feedback. \n Walking through your company needs to be interactive to be effective \nand over time will help your team feel that they can approach you about \nnew ideas or initiatives.<\/li>
  4. ENCOURAGE FAILURE: <\/strong>It is important to understand \nthat nobody is ever right all of the time and that many of life\u2019s most \nimportant lessons come from failed attempts and projects.  Thomas Edison\n once said \u201cI have not failed.  I just found 10,000 ways that don\u2019t \nwork\u201d when talking about inventing the light bulb.   As important as it \nis to encourage failure, it is just as important to not punish failure. \n When a program, test or new idea does not pan out, it\u2019s more \nconstructive when the discussion is about what we learned from it and \nhow it can inform what we do next. This is easier said than done when a \nmistake can impact your business negatively.  However, the more you \ndemonstrate that people can make mistakes without fear of retribution, \nthe more positive your interactions will be.<\/li>
  5. INNOVATION IS NOT JUST \u201cPRODUCT INNOVATION\u201d: <\/strong>Innovation\n is most often associated with new products.  However, innovation \napplies to every aspect of business\u2026 whether it be marketing, \ntechnology, or the guidelines you set for customer experience Innovation\n should be a \u201cway of life\u201d for running a business not a \u201cdefinition\u201d \nassociated with creating new products.  Make sure everyone understands \nand builds goals around this way of thinking.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If You Want a Collaborative and Innovative Organization\u2026 Start HERE! Have you been in business for a long time?  Do you overhear comments from your employees like these: \u201cWe have always done it this way\u201d, \u201cWe tried that before\u201d, \u201cThat\u2019s not how we do things here\u201d, \u201cI am afraid it won\u2019t work\u201d or even \u201cThat <\/p>\n

    read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}