A key blockage to innovation in most businesss is that there’s no ‘process’. In fact, it is one of the 10 common barriers to maximising innovation that we have identified. The problem with ‘processes’ in lots of business leader’s eyes is that it means formality, paperwork, bureacracy, and rigidty – in fact the opposite can be true, and here’s a great example of a simple innovation ‘process’ that could work in any business.
It comes from Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta, two Stanford University students who set up the incredibly successful news gathering ‘app’, Pulse in 2010 and recently sold to Linked In for $90 million!
Speaking at one of the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leadership lectures (always well, well worth listening to by the way – on line or via podcast each week), they highlighted a very simple ‘process’ that they have in their business. On Friday afternoon’s the whole team get together for an hour and as well as updating everyone on progress, they all get involved in ‘I Like…. I Wish…. I Wonder…..’
Everyone is encouraged to feed into the team things that they, guess what….
- ‘Like’ – things that have gone well, recognition for a job well done, highlighting individual contributions and successes
- ‘Wish’ – things that need improving, developing and changing
- ‘Wonder‘ – suggestions, questions, ideas, queries, clarification of things from others (particularly the bosses!)
It’s fun, collaborative, engaging and … simple.
Diarising time into your meetings to do this, or even creating a specific time to do this regularly is a ‘process’!
- I like it!
- I wish more would do it!
- I wonder if you will?
If you want a bit more help in evaluating your approach to innovation, you can download a very simple ASSESSMENT TOOLKIT here to find out! It’s FREE!
