There are high chances that you already have unconventional thinkers in your business who are itching to tell their great ideas to someone who will listen.
It is important that this quality called as intrapreneurship is fostered which will also help your retention.
You absolutely must nurture an intrapreneurial mindset among management if you want those great ideas to flow. Give them fertile ground, or unconventional thinkers will get bored and frustrated, and move on to companies that will appreciate and reward them — those companies might be your competitors.
There are two most important factors for fostering innovative thinking within a company.
* Supporting an employee plays an crucial role in bringing out the ideas. Your employees may be afraid to put themselves out there, or be convinced that no one will care or notice their great idea and they will be able to overcome this only with some support.
There are different types of support that can be given to an employee.
# Give enough time away from their 'day jobs' to work on creative ideas, but set up formal processes to make sure those ideas go somewhere.
# Encourage everyone from all ranks and functions to contribute their ideas.
# Diverse viewpoints result in better ideas and better products.
# Governments all over the world are offering new tax breaks and other incentives for research and development — and companies in turn are urging government to support innovation.
* At times backing some ideas that you think are good, may not yield the expected result. But don’t let that stop you from encouraging and supporting the hidden visionaries in your company. We all know that you have to take big risks to have any hope of achieving great things.
Courtesy: www.forbes.com
