Innovation Communication Strategy: What to Do if Your Team is Stuck in a Rut

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to creating a culture of innovation within a given organization is creating an environment that encourages a flow of creativity. The need for continual change management grows ever stronger in the face of competition, and keeping your team motivated as far as those changes are concerned is crucial – and it is also really tough.

Check out this great article from Harvard Business Review, “What to do if your team is in a rut”: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/08/what-to-do-if-your-team-is-in-a-rut/. The article, which tackles the problem of waning creativity, can give you a new perspective on how to develop an innovation communication strategy when ideas start to turn stagnant. As the article notes, teams get stale from time to time – that is inevitable – so instead of just letting that stagnancy breed and take root, battle it.

Here are some of the key points from the article:

– Diagnose and fix any obvious problems. When and why was your team most creative in the past, and has something happened to douse that level of thinking? Is there any way to recreate the scenario within which these ideas flourished?

– Focus your team’s attention. Big brainstorming meetings might work in theory, but with too broad a theme, the focus becomes fractured and with too many things going on at once, these meetings will yield little.

– Bring in different points of view. Change the perspective and think about going to different team members – those with different jobs or experiences that can bring a whole new level of thinking to the table.

– Conquer your team’s fear of failure. Failing may not be something you want to celebrate, but keeping in mind that small failures can sometimes lead to long-term successes can help to break down the fear that might be holding some people back.

When it comes to finding a way to inject some fresh ideas, perhaps refining your communication strategy is a great way to start.

For more ideas about how to encourage innovation within a team that seems to be stuck in a rut, Innovators Alliance can help. Call us today at 905-332-0340 or check us out online at www.innovators.org.