It?s easier to say that you are innovative than it is to be innovative. The difference is not always understood by some businesses and they suffer for it.
What if there was an easy way to determine if your business is really committed to innovation? It could be a simple question that you could ask yourself.
Recently, I attended the National Speakers Association’s annual conference in Washington DC. Imagine 1,700 professional communicators, marketers, and solopreneurs together for five days.?
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The resulting energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge shared is powerful and overwhelming. From the event, I have a to-do list that might be best described as a long scroll.
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I knew that it was important to attend this event because you have to invest in yourself if you want to maximize your potential. In order to get good, you have to commit to getting better.
Often, we stop learning once we reach a certain level in our careers. The same applies to businesses. We?re comfortable with the view from the top of our mountain but we don?t realize that there are plenty of other mountains on the horizon. Plus, there are other people (known as your competition) actively climbing those mountains.
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And yet, some will continue to claim innovation.
This is when my innovation test enters the room. I’ll talk to people who boast that their business is innovative or cutting edge. I’ll then ask them a simple question:
“What’s the newest idea that you’ve learned and implemented in the past 90 days?”
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It’s rare that I get more than a mumbled response about the question being unfair. Maybe I should have been a lawyer.
It?s not just that they don?t have an answer for the 90 day timeframe. They?re unable to come up with any innovation. They?re not able to even say, ?We?ve learned about something new but we?re not sure how to implement it.? After all, sometimes you may learn something new and later realize that it?s not the right fit. In this instance, the effort of trying is what?s important.
Despite the lack of any kind of answer, the respondents maintain that their business is on the cutting edge. It?s like the dream of having every child be above average.
Perhaps the people who are doing the innovation, in the business, are not the ones who are answering the question. If that?s true, then they are doing a poor job of communicating it through the organization.
I’ve learned it’s easy to talk about growing your skills or introducing new ideas but for many it never gets further than the going to do it phase.
Is that a smart thing in a rapidly changing, global marketplace?
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I’ve decided that I need to walk my own talk and I’ll be asking myself the 90 day question. I’ve put reminders on my calendar. Will you?
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