How to Pave the Way for Innovative Thinking.

A fun part of owning a business is dreaming up new ways to make money. It can be an immensely satisfying creative process, and the payoff is very tangible. But the rules aren’t obvious. Here are two coaching tips that can help make your team succeed at the innovation game.
Think Big But Accept Small Successes 
As a college student in the early ‘60s, I worked for a company that created programmed learning texts. Out of curiosity, I worked through one of the courses, Introduction to Computing, and had something akin to a religious experience. It quite literally changed my life. I became an evangelical proponent of what computers could do, and sought salvation for my over-drawn bank account as a disciple of IBM.
My plan was to start the first computer service bureau in Albuquerque. I dreamed of leasing a computer, renting a building, and hiring programmers. We’d offer innovative automated accounting services to companies with bookkeepers that punched the keys and yanked the handle on mechanical adding machines.
One major problem: in those days, the cheapest computer I could find cost $2,000 a month. Compared to the $35 a month I was paying for a used Nash Rambler, the cheapest car I could find, that was a fortune.
I had big dreams, but a small success helped me start my first business. I took my newfound computer expertise to a business school, and landed a job teaching programming.
When I asked if I could use their computer during the hours it was idle, management agreed out of nothing more than pure goodness. I lost a lot of sleep writing a payroll program, landed a contract with the Village Inn Pancake House when I figured out how to handle tips, and Business Computer Services was born.
I learned you don’t have to swing for the fence. The arrangement I had with the school wasn’t a base hit, more like an intentional walk, and it was far from my original grandiose plan. But I was in the game.
Don’t Hobble Your Team With Strict Rules
Bill Veeck, twice owner of the White Sox and other teams, is best known for “Grandstand Manager Day” when he gave yes/no cards to fans in the bleachers allowing them to vote on decisions usually reserved for managers—steal, change pitchers, bunt, walk. The team won 5-3, and broke a four-game losing streak.
More than a publicity stunt, giving people control is a huge motivational factor. Conversely, the best way to hobble an innovation opportunity is to follow a policy of “we'll do it the way we've always done it.”
In the ‘80s I took a job as head of an intrapreneurial division of a computer company. We were charged with creating new products that would use a bleeding-edge technology called CD-ROM. HR rounded up an extraordinary selection of existing employees and talented potential hires. Before long, we had a team of brilliant people that could have taken us to the moon if we’d decided that was the direction to go.
But I had two problems: the head of the IT thought I was encroaching on his turf and management didn’t understand that rigid rules stifle the innovation process.
Nevertheless, we prevailed and three of seven new products highlighted in the company’s annual report came out of our division.
Moral of the Story
Innovation needs to be nurtured, encouraged, and protected from politics. A hush-hush division of Lockheed, unknown to everyone else in the company (and the world) and free from the usual corporate rules, built the U-2, the highest-flying aircraft in the world and the SR-71, the fastest aircraft in the world. Today, the Skunk Works is a synonym for innovation.
In a rapidly changing world, innovation is fundamental to business success. Everyone on your team has to be an innovator, and you have to both encourage it and remove obstacles to creativity.
Tom Harnish is a serial entrepreneur. Always on the bleeding edge of technology, he learned what works (and what doesn't) leading projects, products and companies to success (mostly). He can't play a lot of musical instruments.