Innovation: ideas may come from all directions

Considering that a medium to big company can have hundreds or thousands of employees, it’s impossible to believe that only a few leaders at the top will produce the seeds of innovation. Someone might be the CTO of a 2,000-employee tech organization, but it wouldn’t be wise to waste the minds of 1,999 people because only the appointed leader can have great ideas. 

There are certainly several bright, innovative individuals spread throughout the organization. When you bring together people with different experiences, backgrounds, and worldviews, the innovation potential is amplified even further. The result can only be better than when everyone thinks and acts similarly, which is why diversity is increasingly valued in companies.

What Google did well from early on in its history, for example, was to create mechanisms that allowed people to be creative with the help of engineering tools that promoted collaboration. They made it easy to prototype an idea, build an MVP, and test it in production. At the same time, an engineer who wanted to start a new project had to exercise her powers of persuasion with other colleagues to “sell” a project and gather support to move it forward. The reality is that it’s not enough to have a good idea, it needs to be supported by others, and for this to happen, a company must have mechanisms in place.

Companies with a more top-down approach tend to have fewer of these mechanisms available. It is essential to enable people who are lower down in the hierarchy to access decision-makers. With this access, employees feel like they will be able to contribute something new and be more motivated to bring ideas forward. 

People in leadership roles must open channels of communication so that all employees feel that they are listened to and that they can contribute ideas and innovate. Ideas can come from anywhere in a company, so it is the role of a CTO or tech leader to keep the flow of ideas open.

It is essential to enable people who are lower down in the hierarchy to access decision-makers.

Communication channels

Institutionally speaking, one way of enabling this flow is for companies to have:

• Demo days, where people can present ideas to the whole company
• Hackathons, when professionals think problems through and validate an idea in a fun and stimulating way

Some companies even allow their employees to raise money internally for their ideas, creating mini venture capital initiatives within the organization itself. All of these initiatives are valid, and each technology organization must seek solutions that are compatible with its culture.

Another way to make room for ideas to emerge is by allocating some extra funds in budgets for teams to think outside the box for new medium- (H2) and long-term (H3) projects.

Experienced technology managers know that not every employee wants to dedicate their time to new ideas since some genuinely prefer to work on projects that have a direct impact on the business. Most people fall into this category. There are some people, however, whose creative side is more pronounced and who only feel fulfilled when they have the freedom to create new things. 

Good leadership knows how to identify how each member of their team works best and takes advantage of their diverse strengths and contributions. A balanced team needs a mix of people working towards different planning horizons.