99 percent of success is built on failure. Charles Kettering

The Idea Champions process not only worked, it exceeded our every expectation. Melinda McLaughlin, A&E Television Networks  MORE

1. Declare your expectation that innovation is a vital part of the job
2. Invite everyone to take responsibility for co-creating a culture of innovation
3. Give people stretch goals they care about (or ask them to invent their own).
4. Ask your staff what they need from you in order to think out of the box
5. Ask your team to propose seven ways to make the work environment more conducive to breakthrough thinking
6. Conduct 15 minute brainstorming sessions first thing every morning
7. Challenge everyone's limiting assumptions. Continually ask "what if?"
8. Start celebrating innovation successes
9. Eliminate as much bureaucracy as possible. Simplify procedures!
10. Allow people 10% of their work time to develop new ideas
11. Create an innovation slush fund to invest in breakthrough ideas
12. Spend at least 60 minutes each day being an innovation coach
13. Gather innovation best practices and discuss ways to adapt them in-house
14. Conduct post-mortems on all ideas that "fail." Learn from mistakes!
15. Look for ways to brainstorm with other teams at the interfaces
16. Start a department-wide idea bank
17. Create a public bulletin board where new ideas can be communicated
18. Be relentless in your commitment to give feedback on new ideas
19. Send your staff off-site to a creative thinking training (or bring it in-house)
20. Ask customers to submit their ideas for how you can serve them better
21. Match your staff with projects that really fascinate them
22. Be personally involved in at least one breakthrough project
23. Begin a series of quarterly Innovation Recognition events
24. Modify your intranet to spark more brainstorming and collaboration
25. Find simple ways to "keep score" (i.e. measure progress)