It's amazing how many mundane things we can all endure in life. Perhaps a combination of traffic jams, queues at stores, and the bureaucracy that develops at work influences expectations that everything will be slow and difficult. In short, we believe that going with the flow is much easier than trying to innovate more efficient and faster methods of performing tasks.
We found out that innovative people are people who want to save time, access effective tools, and more efficient options for doing things. Suppose your organization needs to boost efforts to improve organizational innovation. Organization leaders will have one of two possible ways to achieve this:
1. Push strategy:
Encourage employees to move forward, which is called a push strategy, and for this leaders are willing to do a number of things, including:
- Leaders set deadlines for achieved innovations.
- Hold employees accountable for what they have done to improve innovation.
- Continuous follow-up with employees to ensure that objectives will be met.
- Push people hard to deliver on their commitments.
2. Pull strategy:
Attracting the attention of employees about the benefit of innovation, which is called the pull strategy, and for this, leaders will do several things, including:
- Leaders generate excitement and interest in what innovation can bring to the organization.
- Find ways to motivate employees to innovate them.
- Celebrate any success in innovation.
The data shows that the attraction strategy is more effective:
Both approaches are useful, but in order to determine which is most useful, we looked at data from over 57,000 organization leaders, and identified the most distinctive in terms of their use of push and pull methods. We then looked at their ratings of effectiveness in creating an innovative environment in their teams and the organization.
What we found was that leaders who scored less than the top quartile on both approaches scored in the 38th percentile on innovation. Leaders that were in the top quartile for push but not pull improved to the 58th percentile, while amazing leaders that were in the top quartile for pull but not push improved to the 73rd percentile.
Our data clearly confirms that pulls generate more innovation than push others. Leaders in the top quartile for both approaches were rated at the 85th percentile for innovation. These results show that pull is most helpful in generating innovation.
But leaders who hold others accountable, set deadlines, and push hard can achieve even better results than using the pull strategy alone.
Behaviors that characterize leaders using the pull strategy:
We surveyed the top quartile leaders for both innovation and their ability to pull, and ran a test to identify key behaviors that helped create this environment for innovation. We compared their results to those of all the other readers in our database and singled out the behaviors that showed the greatest difference.
These behaviors can increase the effectiveness at pulling up innovation in your team.
1. They set stretch goals that may seem impossible at first glance:
It will be interesting to see how the stretch goals play out. Asking people to produce 10% more can be achieved simply by working longer and harder, but asking for a 50% increase makes people rethink the problem. Rigorous goals force team members to rethink entire processes and come up with innovative approaches to achieving their goals.
2. They give a clear vision of the company's destination and the goal they want to achieve:
While we didn't micromanage the process, we found these leaders to provide clear direction and purpose. They often discuss the desired direction and what was needed. It also helps people connect their individual responsibilities to overall business goals. Some people worry about over-communicating, but our research shows that the problem for most leaders is not communicating enough.
3. They painted the long- term vision for where the organization needs to go:
In addition to what needs to be done today, these leaders had a long view of where the organization needs to be in the future. This foresight and diligent planning to achieve goals keeps employees on track, and makes them feel that their steps towards success are deliberate and steady.
4. They turned on a dime:
The road to innovation is full of holes and wrong turns. These leaders were very good at spotting problems and changing direction quickly. They encouraged everyone to learn from their mistakes and move on. They also supported people who made mistakes. Team members felt the leader was behind them and did not throw them under the bus.
5. Invest in innovation to attract customers:
Innovation could easily become a favorite project, interesting, and useful to the organization, but of little value to the client. These great leaders understood the current and future needs of their clients and sought ways for team members to interact and communicate with clients to increase their understanding and commitment.
6. They sold the new idea and turn it into a profitable business deal:
Too many people believe that the value of new and innovative approaches is so obvious to others that they don't actually need to be sold. Innovation often fails here because others in the organization don't understand the value. And here comes the role of exceptional leaders in marketing and convincing others of innovation, and then turning it into a profitable business deal.
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