What roles does Trust play in your organization’s innovation success?
We asked our guests at Innovation Leaders Forum in Washington DC (June 2011) to share their insights with each other. There were some predictable ideas (earned slowly, lost fast; or, it starts at the top), there were a few controversial suggestions (distrust may actually trigger innovation), yet all guests shared the conclusion that Trust plays a critical role in enterprise innovation initiatives. Below I recap an array of the most thought-provoking contributions, starting with Team one:
- Because CHANGE is required for Innovation to evolve and succeed, management should anticipate that many team members will confront risks, fears and emotional challenges that are best dealt with in a safe, trustworthy environment
- To achieve organization or team Trust, what is most needed is a sense of equal commitment from all, diversity and inclusion, and candid feedback for validation or course correction (most participants believe that time famine or culture often stands in the way of quality feedback)
- What most undermines Trust in innovation initiatives is criticism, lack of energy, and lack of recognition between team mates or management leaders
Big takeaway? Innovation IS Change. As is true in our personal lives, our corporate personas demand that Trust be taken quite seriously in how we work, communicate, give and receive feedback. How often are you personally satisfied with the trust hygiene of your organization or projects? Most participants expressed dissatisfaction in this dimension.
A second team focused on Failure. In their perspective a healthy trust-based environment will exude a willingness to accept, understand and learn from Failure. One participant went so fas as to request that innovation processes be characterized by a perception of justice, namely, that they benefit from constant communication, transparency and explicit rules for decision-making. Just this week at an innovation project kick-off meeting our CEO client experienced the proverbial Aha! moment when he observed that Innovation at his enterprise would be much more successful if they “rethought the rewards, penalties and consequences of Failure”. In recent years the organization has been unable to achieve strategic or breakthrough innovations, with most projects representing mild incremental efforts. When we explored this subject further with our CEO client, he depicted an R&D and innovation setting where only quick wins with a high certainty of success have been rewarded. Projects with greater ambitions, and their participants, had been viewed with considerable distrust as wasteful or mis-directed.
Our third team coined the phrase “Can’t Innovate Without It” which I decided to use as the post caption. However, while it is easy to observe that Trust is essential, this group contributed some distinctions which are worth mentioning:
- At internet speed on a major new Innovation initiative, Trust may be harder to achieve (I very much concur with this valuable insight; occasionally, it is quite important to slow down the initiative to permit Trust to develop in a deep and sustainable manner)
- Bi-lateral trust is a must: management and leaders must seek to trust participants and the crowd, and likewise, the crowd and participants must trust management
- And lastly, it was observed that there is no substitute for deep, established trust in an innovation team or organization, because rich collaboration required for innovation requires authentic trust
So what is the Trust hygiene of your innovation organization? Is it an asset, liability, or a changing dynamic? I’d very much like to hear from you.
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