How the Best Teams Keep Good Ideas Alive

How the Best Teams Keep Good Ideas Alive

Unleashing the power of collective creativity is a game-changer in any organization. Explore how top-performing teams foster innovation, keep good ideas alive, and transform them into actionable strategies, without letting them get lost in the daily grind.

Many leaders feel stuck

They know that employee perspectives are crucial for retention and innovation, but they struggle to single-handedly create a culture where employees are empowered both to speak up with ideas and to see them through.

Issue-raising

Supporting an idea does not mean unconditional support.

Choose the right tactics

Sharing the concept of voice cultivation with their teams and helping team members reflect on opportunities to implement cultivation tactics sets the stage for active voice cultivation.

Consider the environment

Voice cultivating tactics are most powerful when they’re responsive to why an idea was initially rejected

Legitimizing

Vouching for ideas that you believe in is critical for their success

Voice cultivation can overcome initial rejection

A team in a health care organization tracked instances of “upward voice” – that is, employees’ constructive ideas for improving organizational or team functioning

Exemplifying

Show preliminary evidence that a previously rejected idea is feasible and important

Promoting voice cultivation

To make sure their employees’ good ideas get a better chance at implementation, leaders should train their teams to engage in voice cultivation.

Amplifying

Publicly repeating someone else’s good idea, especially at later times and through multiple communication channels, can help push an idea forward

Developing

Sometimes giving an idea the benefit of the doubt is sufficient

Source

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