Innovation Doesn’t Come from a Slide Deck Alone
There’s a common misconception that innovation is an outcome, resulting from a breakthrough moment. In reality, ingenuity is usually achieved through discipline and small, consistent practices.
Organizations regularly seek out speakers, host offsites or introduce workshops to inspire new ways of thinking. These experiences generate energy, fresh perspectives and meaningful conversations. Yet, too often, once people return to their overflowing inboxes and familiar routines, the excitement fades.
I don’t think these events fail because the presenters or ideas are lacking. It’s because organizations typically invest in the big moment and forget to build the day-to-day habits.
Companies that actively promote a culture of innovation are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers. And culture can take months to years to genuinely transform, so it’s worth getting started right now!
How to create a culture of innovation in the workplace
Creativity comes to life when workplaces intentionally combine training with habit-building. It’s a concept reflected in the well-known 70-20-10 model, which suggests that 70% of learning comes from on-the-job experiences, 20% from interactions with others and 10% from formal training.
Innovation is no different. Professional development introduces new ideas, while everyday tasks and behaviors reinforce them.
Here’s how that can work in practice.
Learning & Development teams can still begin with a kick-off session – perhaps a keynote that sparks forward-thinking concepts, a hackathon for the organization or a workshop, like Fostering Innovation, that explores how Thinking and Behavioral preferences impact how people like to practice creativity. These experiences help teams reset and identify actionable ways to spark novelty.
The event is just the starting point, however. Successful L&D professionals then introduce practical ways to support experimentation through regular touchpoints and culture building.
That might include providing activities, conversation starters and challenges to weave innovation into team meetings, or creating chat channels and networks that encourage staff to share ideas and process improvements.
It also involves training managers to cultivate psychologically safe environments, so staff feel comfortable raising unconventional ideas. Promoting curiosity over certainty, revealing the benefits of cognitive diversity and giving leaders tangible tools to operationalize reasonable risk-taking will all support a culture of invention. One way you can get started is by using The Experiment Log.
The Experiment Log: A Habit, Not an Activity
Invite teams to keep a running document — nothing fancy; a shared document works just fine — where they track and answer four questions:
- What we tried
- Why we tried it
- What happened
- What we learned
To bring it to life:
Ask leaders to go first. Lower engagement among managers accounts for most of the recent downturn in employee engagement. To model the behavior for staff and ensure the habit takes root, challenge supervisors to contribute at least one experiment to The Experiment Log every month.
Review the logs monthly. Encourage people leaders to add The Experiment Log as a running agenda item for team meetings, celebrating the wins and sitting with the failures to find the lesson within.
Weave it into performance conversations. During one-on-one reviews, ensure managers ask their direct reports, « What did you try, and what did you learn?” rather than just, “What did you accomplish this quarter?” The small shift of adding sends a big signal that the company values discovery, not just winning.
Nominate a quarterly « Best Failure. » I love this one! The award doesn’t go to the experiment that worked… it goes to the experiment that didn’t work, because it’s what taught the team the most. Watch what happens to the room the first time you hand that out with real enthusiasm.
Over time, The Experiment Log stops being « a thing we’re doing for L&D » and starts being just how the team and company operate.
The next move is yours
Big ideas can energize people, create momentum and open the door to new possibilities, yet inspiration has a short shelf life if there isn’t a system to sustain it.
That’s why innovation is rarely the product of a single breakthrough moment. It emerges from the practices that happen after the Aha moment: the experiments teams run, the lessons they capture and the space leaders create for curiosity and risk-taking.
What other skills do your leaders need to thrive? Download our free guide, Leading Forward, to find out!
FAQs
Why is it important to have an innovative work culture?
Innovation is how organizations stay adaptable and relevant in a constantly changing environment. Companies that actively promote a culture of innovation are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers. By creating an environment where creativity is celebrated, organizations can solve problems more effectively and remain competitive over time.
How do you build an innovative culture?
By pairing formal learning with informal daily practices, companies can cultivate an inventive work culture. Use the 70-20-10 model to guide your work. Begin with a training session like our Fostering Innovation workshop. Then, cultivate peer relationships and daily practices to create innovative habits. Creating networks to promote idea sharing, setting aside dedicated time in project planning for experimentation and using The Experiment Log can be great practices to start with.
What if leaders don’t have anything to log into The Experiment Log?
If a month goes by with nothing new tried, take time to explore the reason why. In an innovative culture, it should be easy to come up with something to include, so it may be a symptom of your climate, the level of execution required by the team or something else specific to your organization. Answering the why and challenging yourself to use a 5 Why process can get to the root cause.
Are innovation trainings worthwhile investments?
Absolutely. Innovation trainings, workshops, hackathons or keynote presentations can introduce new perspectives, challenge existing assumptions and enliven teams around new possibilities. They’re valuable catalysts for change. The greatest return, however, comes when organizations build systems that help people apply those ideas long after the experience ends.
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