Foster a culture of innovation on your team

- Culture eats strategy for breakfast. No matter how good your ideas are, if your corporate culture doesn't support innovation, they won't gain traction. Before stepping into an innovation role, assess whether your organization is truly innovation friendly. Does it have a track record of successful transformation? Is innovation a core value? Does leadership embrace risk taking and view failure as part of the process? Is cross-team collaboration encouraged? If the answers are no, proceed with caution. Your efforts may face resistance. But if they're a yes, lucky you, you're in a company that understands what it takes to drive change. Companies like Intuit, Salesforce, and 3M embed innovation into their DNA. Intuit's Design for Delight, Salesforce's Customer 360, and 3M's famous 15% rule, all institutionalize experimentation and customer-centric creativity. Beyond corporate culture, fostering a culture of innovation within your own team, direct reports, peers, and stakeholders matters just as much. You have more influence than you might think. Encourage bold strategic thinking. Set clear guidelines around risk taking to foster experimentation. Reward entrepreneurial habits. A great technique is to ask, "What would you do if you owned this company?" Or even, "What would you do if you were in my role?" These questions shift people from passive execution to active problem solving. Adopting change management strategies can also help. Change management focuses on the emotional side of transformation, surfacing hidden roadblocks before they stall progress. Even if you're not launching a major initiative now, leading with an innovation mindset can pay off. Research proves it. A McKinsey study found that companies with strong innovation cultures achieve 2.4x higher economic profit. Reports from BCG and Deloitte confirm that innovation driven companies consistently outperform their peers. PWC and Gallup link innovative workplaces to higher employee engagement and productivity. And Forrester ties them to improved customer satisfaction. So why wouldn't you cultivate an innovation culture? In our next lesson, we'll explore a structured approach to a culture of innovation, the LEAN startup methodology, developed by my fellow LinkedIn Learning instructor, Eric Reese. You'll learn what LEAN is and how to implement it in your team or even on your own.