Innovative
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How to Make Change Stick
by Lisa Bodell, CEO of futurethink
A decade into the 21st century, one thing has become clear: change is the new normal. We call it innovation, and it’s a strategic pillar in nearly every organization. Thanks to a growing body of research and thought leadership in recent years, we’re learning a great deal about the individual skill sets behind innovation, and the organizational strategies that lead to great innovations. Yet in organizations around the world, well-intentioned innovation initiatives crash and burn, despite a wealth of great ideas, copious research, and well-designed strategies.
Why? Innovation is not just about data analysis, plans and processes, and thinking outside the box. More than anything else, innovation is about change. And the truth is that as much as we’d all like to think otherwise, we are all hardwired to resist it.
Despite the grumbling, eye-rolling, and resistance, change is an absolute imperative for organizations today. Innovation is not only about finding new growth opportunities and improving the bottom line. It’s about developing services, solutions, and ideas that improve people’s lives and the world in which we live. This is what the greatest organizations—and individuals—strive to achieve.
So, what can we do to make change stick?
My work is based on the belief that anyone can be innovative, and everyone can become an agent for change. We help organizations—from Fortune 500 companies to governments—create environments where innovation and change thrive naturally. Working with these organizations has given us a chance to experiment with ideas about what it takes to build innovation capabilities in organizations, and then test-drive specific tools and exercises to make it happen. Along the way, I’ve learned that when it comes to change, an organization’s biggest enemy is itself. For any organization to overcome their internal obstacles to change, they must understand and embrace the four central tenets that make change stick:
• Everyone Is a Change Agent
• Created by the Employees, for the employees, by the employees
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Everyone Is a Change Agent
Vision should not be the sole responsibility of leadership, nor should change. People want to be in control of their own destiny. When they are encouraged to be visionaries and shape change, they feel truly empowered and are more excited about participating in your efforts. Leaders can, and should, set the direction and place big bets. But we need to think differently about what people inside organizations can accomplish and how they can be visionaries in their own right. Significant change doesn’t have to start at the top; it can be created at the middle of the organization and subsequently ripple throughout the firm. This empowers everyone to be a change agent, not just senior government leaders or the HR department.
We need to start giving our teams the ability to contribute to and shape their future, and also empower them to enact change on more levels to make it truly take hold. Innovation thrives at organizations where leaders lead, managers have the freedom to think and experiment, and everyone is expected to be a visionary.
Created by the Employees, for the Employees
Cookie-cutter programs don’t work. You need to let people develop solutions to their own problems rather than forcing pre-developed solutions upon them. Every employee is an expert in his own area of the organization and it’s critical to mine his deep knowledge of the way things work when trying to create change.