If you want to implement a new idea or if you’re interested in changing your organizational culture to value innovation, there are four things you should know before you begin.

1. You’re not that smart; they’re not that dumb (Horstman’s Law) Many people will be cool to your idea. It’s not that they’re stupid or that you’re smarter than they are; it’s that innovation is not one of their core competencies. They have other strengths, indeed some of them will be star performers. They won’t embrace innovation. They should be kept informed as appropriate as part of your communications plan. They are not your opponents.
2. Identify Your biggest opponents—and add several to your design team. Years ago I was working with a hospital to provide them with advice on changing to a non-smoking policy. The employee charged with leading the initiative had actual received threats of physical violence. I asked her if she knew who her biggest opponents were. She did, and I encouraged her to add them to her team. Months later, after the implementation went smoothly, she told me they had become her best team members. Their attitude turned around because they not only saw the benefits, but also because they were shown respect for their opinions.
3. Be sure your end users are well represented on your design team. Don’t just appoint a department head, recruit people from the trenches most impacted by your innovation. Your idea will have a better design and you will have powerful peer advocates among those end users.
4. Create and implement an effective two–way communications plan. As Dale Carnegie said, “Ninety percent of all management problems are caused by miscommunication.” Make sure you have an internal communication plan focused on your employees.  You need to explain to them the benefits to your organization, to your constituents or members, and to them.  I’ve seen many ideas fail in deployment because no one focused on the benefits to the employees. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so do employees. If you under communicate, they will fill that vacuum with often inaccurate gossip and other talk.Your communication plan should include a process to rapidly capture feedback.  The US Army is fond of saying, “No plan survives the first contact intact.” No matter how great your idea, Murphy’s Law will come into play at some point. Make sure you can rapidly discover any obstacles so that you can quickly develop solutions. Failure to rapidly respond will slow user adoption.  An effective feedback process will also allow you to quickly highlight successes. If you can quicly spread the work, you may be able to drive user adoption upward at a faster rate.

   Once you’ve sought out the feedback, don’t take it personally; take it professionally.  Be very clinical in your analysis, even if you’re the one who’s nurtured this baby from its earliest stages. Your credibility will increase when people learn that you actively seek accurate feedback.

This is by no means all you need to know about successful innovation. I encourage you to seek out additional resources on that topic as well as on change management. You’ll find it time well spent.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Change Makers, Innovation, Non Profit Innovators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.