CORPORATE CULTURE – THE REASON IT MATTERS SO MUCH

Staying competitive as innovation reshapes entire sectors demands having teams and talent that excel at disruptive thinking to envision fresh solutions and business models. While some naturally push boundaries, creative skills can also be honed organization-wide with deliberate tactics. Leaders must foster cultures where divergent ideas thrive.

Begin by ensuring vision statements and team charters promote questioning assumptions not just accomplishing pre-defined workstreams. Establish psychological safety for speaking up so people with dissenting perspectives do not self-censor. Signal that all voices hold equal weight and serious consideration even if ideas initially seem unrealistic.

Help teams challenge existing constraints and standards by assigning designated contrarians on rotating basis. Charge them with purposely advocating alternatives to current practices. Debate should not aim to undermine progress but stress test viability of solutions and uncover better options previously unseen. Treat conflict around concepts not egos.

Incentivize curiosity and learning agility company-wide through subsidized site visits for employees to experience innovative industries completely apart from their functional expertise. Museums, laboratories, tech start-ups, architecture firms all provide fuel to spark fresh mental models. Nudge people to study the unfamiliar.

Evaluate talent and suppliers not merely on domain credentials but behavioral traits highlighted in their questions, ideas, analysis and reflections. Prioritize those exhibiting intellectual humility who synthesize broad influences balanced with conviction in questioning assumptions over those sticking within narrow disciplinary lanes unable to breach siloes.

Weave lateral thinking skill building into professional development programs, mentorships and training opportunities rather than relegating creative capacity only to R&D units. Make metaphorical connections, visualize future scenarios, and redeem failed efforts not just deliverables.

Rather than completely plan events around precedent, dedicate recurring meetings for more unstructured collective reflection allowing teams to spot pattern breaks and form new connections that recalibrate mental maps. Diverging is the precursor to converging ahead with clarity.

No organization can innovate without workplace cultures where leaders actively nurture, empower and celebrate teams thinking both critically and creatively in questioning the status quo not just checking procedural boxes. Make disruption and change personal mantras.