​To promote a culture of creativity and innovation you must get comfortable with Failure.
Put a positive spin on it. Failure is an inevitable side-effect in any business culture that promotes new ideas and innovative ways of working.
In Dan Pallotta’s Ted Talk, he famously states, “when you prohibit failure, you kill innovation”.
You simply can’t have innovation without embracing mistakes that will happen. You have to take the good with the learnings.

antibiotics, the light bulb, Dyson vacuum cleaners, Post-It notes, the Jacuzzi, WD-40 and Viagra which was initially designed to help cure chest pain.
Innovation does not need to be on a world changing scale. Your business may find innovative solutions to your client's issues. This may not make a ripple of global impact but have a mammoth impact for your client.

How can you embrace failure and promote innovation in your business?

• Ask the audience – If your team or your clients have a problem that you are not sure how to solve, ask the wider business. Someone in a completely different area may have just the solution. Or part of the solution to the problem that can be tweaked.​

One of the key takeaways was Accountability. We all have tough days when we want to just turn up and coast. If you feel accountable to your team you are more likely to push through those moments. You know that your team depend on you and your contribution. You get in there and just do it.

Your Accountability Toolkit:
Communicate your business strategy

• Where are you going and how you will get there?
• Be transparent on the overall strategy of your business and share your progress regularly with your team. Transparency will lead to accountability as the team will know where they are heading.

 Ownership of team goals

• The team needs to own and feel connected to the goals that they need to achieve to fit in to the overall business strategy. Ownership creates accountability.

 Be clear on how each team member contributes to the end goal

• Each person on a sporting field has a role to play. Use that analogy for your business. Ensure collaboration of tasks and make it clear how all the different roles contribute to the overall goal. Avoid the silo approach.
• If people know how their role impacts up and down stream they are more likely to do it and do it well.

​Encourage an open arena for the tough conversations

• Successful teams need to be open and honest with one another. They need a safe environment to have tough conversations about what is working and what needs to change. Give your team a platform to air their dirty laundry. Allow them freedom to admit their mistakes, their weaknesses and concerns without fear. Then move on.

 Celebrate your success

• When you reach the milestone that you have all been working towards take time out as a team to celebrate your success. If you don’t hit your goal then it is just as important to share the learnings. This is a key step. It develops culture.

 
At the end of the cycle you go back to re-set the strategy and start all over again.

You can have a business full of great individual talent but ultimately success comes from team work. A high performing team are accountable to one another and will ultimately put themselves on the line for the greater good of the team.

If your team needs to discover their strategy for success get in touch – The People Scene HR Kickstart program can help you out and set you on the path to high performance