{"id":16,"date":"2018-11-25T16:36:14","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T16:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/?p=16"},"modified":"2019-01-10T02:23:02","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T02:23:02","slug":"part-ii-if-you-want-a-collaborative-and-innovative-organization-start-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/part-ii-if-you-want-a-collaborative-and-innovative-organization-start-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Part II: If You Want a Collaborative and Innovative Organization\u2026 Start HERE!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part One discussed five (5) ways to help build a collaborative and \ninnovative culture:  Trusting your Employees, then Empowering your \nEmployees, Being Visible and Approachable, Encouraging Failure and \nmaking sure everyone understands that Innovation is much more than just \nProduct Innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Here are five more things to think about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. ENABLE, ENCOURAGE & REQUIRE CUSTOMER INTERACTION:<\/strong>\n You might ask what this has to do with Innovation?   A lot!  Making \nsure all of your employees are \u201chearing\u201d the customer directly and \nindirectly will further instill a sense of ownership and help them to \nidentify opportunities to meet customer needs from all levels of your \norganization.    Are employees listening to customer service calls?  \nReading customer emails? Reviewing weekly satisfaction survey results?  \nIdentifying unspoken customer service opportunities? They should be!<\/li>
  2. \u201cEAT YOUR OWN DOG FOOD\u201d:<\/strong> It\u2019s crucial that \nemployees look at the company and its products or services through the \n\u201ceyes\u201d of the consumer.  Have them experience firsthand, your company\u2019s \nproducts and services and your competition\u2019s products and services from \nthe perspective of the customer.  One of the more successful executions \nof this concept was demonstrated to me by an executive on my team who \nlaunched a program called \u201cEat your own dog food\u201d.  Employees were \nrequired to go through the entire customer life cycle from clicking on \nan ad, ordering a product, returning a product, complaining about a \nproduct, using a product, and everything in between.  The list of ideas \nabout what to change, fix and build to improve the customer experience \nwas very long!<\/li>
  3. ENABLE, ENCOURAGE & REQUIRE PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE:<\/strong>\n If we expect our employees to be successful in innovating across \nproduct and marketing to your consumers then they better understand \nthose products and services that you are selling.  Give them product \ntraining!  All training is not created equal.  The level of product \ntraining for your customers\u2019 service reps may be more in-depth than \nproduct training for the finance team.  Training ca take the form of \nonline webinars, one-on-one in depth training or even at home reading<\/li>
  4. DON\u2019T BE THE \u201cKNOW-IT-ALL\u201d:<\/strong> Seems obvious?  I have\n seen many leaders who are never willing to say they made a mistake or \ndon\u2019t want to show that they don\u2019t understand something.  As a strong \nleader, you will have already hired the best possible people in all \ncritical roles\u2026  they should know more than you about what they do every\n day.  It also should be very clear to everyone on your team that you \nare open to being challenged.  This often leads to the most productive \ndiscussions\/debates.  It is a losing proposition if everyone yeses you \nall the time.<\/li>
  5. BE TRANSPARENT:<\/strong> If the numbers are up\u2026 Tell your \nemployees.  If the numbers are down\u2026 share this as well.  If the team is\n going to \u201cown\u201d the business they need to understand it – good or bad.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    BONUS:  REWARD TEAMWORK:   <\/strong>Take the time to \n\u201ccall-out\u201d successful projects, marketing campaigns or other initiatives\n that were accomplished with close collaboration across departments. It \ncan be a simple verbal recognition or an award that is given out at a \nquarterly town hall.  I like to give the group a cash gift-card to be \nused for a team lunch.  At the same time \u2013 just stopping by someone\u2019s \noffice and saying \u201cgreat job\u201d goes a long way!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Part One discussed five (5) ways to help build a collaborative and innovative culture:  Trusting your Employees, then Empowering your Employees, Being Visible and Approachable, Encouraging Failure and making sure everyone understands that Innovation is much more than just Product Innovation. Here are five more things to think about: ENABLE, ENCOURAGE & REQUIRE CUSTOMER INTERACTION: <\/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-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","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=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highlandgrowthpartners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}