Three Simple Ways to Generate Innovation in Your Workplace

Generating creativity and innovation in the workplace in many cases requires a change in corporate culture. This is never easy but there are some simple yet powerful ways to be begin to create a culture of creativity and find innovation inside the imagination of your entire workforce.

The first and possibly most powerful way is to put your employees in the right frame of mind to innovate. Creativity expert Dewitt Jones tells us to celebrate what's right with the world. What he means is that when we are looking at the positive rather than the negative we are open to new possibilities. Our minds are prepared to be creative. We are seeing the beauty and potential in everything when we are in this state.

The second way is to recognize paradigm shifts. We create paradigms to make sense of the world and we work within in them in almost everything we do. A paradigm is essentially a framework of commonly accepted views. In the business world a paradigm could be a change in the way customers use or need a product. For example, the change from VHS to DVD could be considered a paradigm shift. If VCR makers didn't recognize that technology was changing and that there was a need for a better medium to show video, they would have withered and died. Futurist Joel Barker writes in the "The Business of Paradigms" that change comes before we are ready for it and we need to be ready to embrace it. This is the time when innovation is most needed.

The third step is to provide your employees with the opportunity to innovate. A free and open exchange of ideas is imperative for innovation to work. Managers throughout the organization need to solicit employees for ideas and provide a weekly meeting where these ideas can be discussed. Give full credit when it is due and expand on ideas with the collective imagination of the entire group.

Following these simple yet powerful ideas will set your organization on the right track. It might require a change in cultural but generating creativity and innovation in your workforce will prove invaluable when navigating the ever changing business world.

Charlie Bentson King is a writer and producer of training videos for TrainingABC. TrainingABC is a distributor of Joel Barker videos like the Business of Paradigms.