How Do You Cultivate Innovation ?

Being innovative means solving a problem in a unique and creative way. Companies like Google, Apple, GE and Facebook have made billions because innovation is a principal value in everything they do. Given the positive associations with it, every organization likes to think it fosters innovation, but unfortunately, the truth is often much different. This week's Culture Beat explores the qualities of truly innovative cultures. How does yours stack up?
Promoting Pride in the Individual and the Organization
According to research recently published in the Journal of Business Venturing, which looked at two decades of data on 62 countries, both individualistic and nationalistic cultures support innovation. While it’s not a major surprise that individualism is strongly associated with innovation, a more intriguing finding is that cultures that value the success of the group and have high degrees of patriotism also encourage innovation in their people. Countries like Japan and Sweden, for instance, are traditionally more collectivist but are also extremely innovative.
Employing Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership is a management style that seeks to positively impact the attitudes and behaviors of followers. Frequently described as high-energy and high on passion, transformational leaders are focused more on success of the people responsible for the outcome than the success of the outcome itself. Such managers promote intellectual curiosity, open communication, performance rewards and professional development. They are able to articulate a clear vision for progress and, by appealing to the moral high ground, serve as an inspirational role model for employees. Michael Dell of Dell, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Lou Gerstner of IBM and Martin Luther King Jr. are oft-cited examples of transformational leaders.
Giving People Permission to Fail
True innovators know that hitting upon a successful idea is a process of trial and error, and more often than not, you have to experiment with several approaches before finding one that works. Cultures infused with innovation are not risk-averse and don’t hold people back by always insisting on a revenue-winning outcome. By giving employees the freedom to fail, organizations also open themselves up to spectacular wins. Sounds a bit like transformational leadership, doesn’t it? And one need only to look at Microsoft to see it in action.

Don’t Restrict the Focus to R&D
Throwing some budget at research and development departments, or launching a siloed “innovation committee” will not definitively move your culture in the right direction.  Instead, employees in all areas of the business must be encouraged to weave innovative thinking into everyday tasks and projects, and should be rewarded for doing so.
Innovative Cultures Don’t Need Gatekeepers
Fast Company Co.Design bloggers Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen claim that there is a new type of professional in American businesses specifically tasked with innovation. “Innovation custodians” are middle managers assigned to oversee innovators and their processes. “Innovation word-slingers” are external consultants who lead in-house innovation workshops. The problem with innovation professionals, say Skibsted and Hansen, is that they rarely have the maverick outlook that it takes to innovate in a substantive way. Also, innovation should be an attitude that organically runs through the heart of an organization and cannot be easily implemented by a manager with a to-do list.
Do you think your culture breeds innovation?  What advantages and disadvantages do small businesses have in this regard?
Alexandra Levit is a former nationally syndicated business and workplace columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the author of Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success. Money Magazine’s Online Career Expert of the Year, she regularly speaks at organizations and conferences on issues facing modern employees.

12:49 by Robert dawne · 1

Study Finds Interns Not Getting Hired.

Newly minted college graduates are caught in a bind. More than ever, first-time job seekers need to have an internship or two on their resumes to be competitive applicants. But internships are rarely a shortcut to full-time employment; a survey released last month showed half of employers haven’t hired any interns in six months.
The findings help explain why half of all recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed, says Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, a Generation Y research and consulting firm in Boston, which commissioned the study.
No Guarantees
"Employers have high expectations of interns, yet they don’t hire interns and they don’t hire into full-time jobs,’’ Schawbel says. “ A lot of people think if they get an internship it will magically turn into a job, but those expectations are gone.’’
Experience Inc., a career services provider for colleges, conducted the study by examining the hiring practices and employment needs of 225 companies in its data pool of 100,000 U.S. companies.
The survey found that employers believe students need to pay their dues as interns; a majority of survey respondents said job-seeking students should perform more than one internship and 87 percent of respondents said an internship should last at least three months. But spending a semester as an underpaid underling is no guarantee to employment. Of the companies surveyed, only 16 percent said they hired at least half of their interns. More than a quarter of companies surveyed hired none of their interns as full-time workers.
“Students should strive to have as many internships as possible before graduation and not rely on a single employer for a job offer,’’ says Schawbel, who says he landed seven internships in college.
Not All Doom and Gloom
But there is good news for the 1.7 million college students who are earning diplomas this spring. Nearly 90 percent of employers surveyed say they are going to hire more recent graduates this year.
The study found that a third of companies are recruiting engineering and computer information systems majors and nearly a third have sought liberal arts majors. Just 18 percent are recruiting finance and accounting majors combined.
What Employers Really Want
Taking junior year abroad shouldn't make or break a resume; fewer than half of employers said that a graduate’s global perspective was vital. Just a little more than a quarter of employers said they prized a graduate having years of experience.
Nearly all employers view communication skills as being important or very important when hiring entry-level workers, the study found. Employers also cited positive attitudes and teamwork skills as nearly as important.
Companies prize soft skills—such as clear writing and sharing information—over hard skills and view the soft skills as ones that are hardest to find in new recruits, Schawbel says.
Check the Attitude
But having the right skills won’t suffice if a student flubs an interview. More than 40 percent of employers in the study reported being turned off by how unprepared students were in interviews and a quarter found the interviewees showed a bad attitude.
Schawbel says that while most employers aren’t on the Web hunting for students, students must look there, and everywhere else.
"You got to use everything at your disposal: networking, career services, joining philanthropy groups, using the social networks, getting active on LinkedIn groups,’’ he says. “ My whole mantra is, you can’t rely on anything.’’
Has your business taken on interns? How many have you hired for permanent positions?

11:56 by Robert dawne · 1