Innovation

4. Internal Inspiration

No-one knows more about your business than the people who work inside it.

4.1 Talk to your employees.

• Spend time walking around your business with your eyes and ears open.
• Use your appraisal process and suggestion schemes to canvass employee ideas.
• Hold regular team meetings to gather feedback and ideas.
• Keep hierarchies flat. Short chains of command make it easier for ideas to be heard.

4.2 Improve your product by identifying faults.

4.3 Make full use of internal benchmarking.

Are there good ideas in one part of the business that can be used elsewhere?

4.4 Encourage experiments and be prepared to take risks.

• Allocate new projects to teams. Give employees new responsibilities as part of their team roles.
• Choose performance measures that will help you monitor each project.
• Recognise employee-led innovations, both privately, in your appraisal process and publicly, using noticeboards or newsletters.
• Start a system of rewards for individuals or teams who bring business success through innovation. See Incentive pay.