š« Innovation, is it the secret sauce? š
No. Not it isn't. Innovation is basically just "making things better", why do you need incubators, hothouses and other nonsense to "make things better"?
šÆ Innovation
One of the things that really gets up my nose in the fancy pants world of business is how people think about, and action, the idea of innovation.
People seem to treat innovation as this golden god, a holy grail, the secret sauce of how to be successful.
Well, Iām here to tell you otherwise. Take a look out of your window. What do you see? You see the world and in that world are things that exist. They donāt need improving, they donāt need replacing.
They need maintaining.
The industries we work in are constantly looking for the next big thing, the leap that will help them go faster, do better, be stronger. Instead we should be looking for ways to maintain our existing systems, to make small, incremental improvements to the things we know already work.
š¤ Small things
For example, instead of trying to find a new tool or service to make your recruitment quicker try and find where your existing process isnāt working and make minor improvements. Perhaps you need to digitize one of the steps, or re-word a form to make it less confusing. Perhaps you can strip something out that you could do much, much later.
Innovation, for all itās incubators and facilitators is really just a fancy way of saying āimproving thingsā. Some companies (big, lumbering, sea freighters sized ones usually, but not always) think the best way of getting ahead, is to create an incubator, or an innovation division or a hothouse or whatever you want to call a group of people who get together to work out what the next Big Thing is.
*Sigh*
What we really need is for everyone to innovate all the time. Instead of making innovation this big, shiny thing, it should be an every day thing. Instead of anointing people innovators, just agree that everyone should be innovating and offer the time, space and tools to do so.
š¤ Who knows? You do
What we know for a fact is that the people closest to the work, know the best way to do the work. They also know how to improve the way the work is done, but either donāt have the autonomy, authority or knowledge to improve the work - give them those things. Explain that innovation ISNāT big bang, itās small changes that add up.
Youāll soon have innovation coming out of your ears as well as a faster, more accurate process and much, much happier people.
š£ The #people channel
This section is part request, part gripe and part grovel.
Iāve noticed that often, someone will post a question, āHey, does anyone have a template for a thing?ā and someone else will reply, āYeah, Iāll DM you.ā
Which is nice, as itās one person helping out another. The thing that could make that interaction better is if the person helping shared the template for a thing with the whole channel.
Then everyone benefits.
So, my ask/gripe/grovel is that we all behave a little more āopen sourceā - if someone asks a question and you can help, please help my reply, or in the channel, then everyone benefits and we could even have a conversation about the thing!
šŖ End #post
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