I was recently reading through Intrepid’s blog articles and took the time to read Innovation Worker, Meet the World. I had to do a double take to make sure I read its message correctly: “Take risks”? “You are supported by the organization”? That is unusual language to read on a company’s website. Personally I think our management is either genius or crazy—maybe both—and I find that interesting and refreshing.

When you give a seasoned professional permission to go wild… they may just take you up on it. I have, I’ve taken the message to heart, and am interpreting it as permission to learn and grow—and really have fun on the job. I work with a bunch of really creative people, so I can’t wait to quote the blog in our meetings, and then wait for the results.The concept is thrilling, playful and amusing to me. Why is such a simple message such big deal? After reflecting on the question for a while, the answer became obvious. I realized that after years of doing the “right” thing, the practical, professional thing, I cut out most of the fun.

A history of practicality

Why have I been so practical? I think it’s because I am a first generation American. I was raised in a family that valued hard work and saw education as something that could never be taken away from you. School was my job and college was an expectation since before kindergarten. I did not even realize there were options beyond formal education. School, morphing into work, always came first, and doing the thing that provided for financial security was the right thing.

Hard work was a strong positive model in my life, one that I applied when raising my own family. As the years progressed, I found myself a single parent faced with difficult situations, and my logical solution to nearly every issue was even harder work. Of course I was interested in many things outside of strictly career-related subjects, but we all know that there are only so many hours (and so much energy) in a day. It’s easy to get lost in the practical and the necessary; who has time to think much, let alone philosophically?

The “right” way is not the only way

But something was always missing. It took me a long time to realize that career growth can be plotted and planned for, but personal growth happens in inspired bursts— in moments of inspiration and innovation—and I wasn’t giving those moments the space to happen. I was so caught up in the practical that I was not giving myself room to try new things, maybe to fail, but certainly to grow. I just wanted to make sure I performed well and continued to move up the career ladder the predictable way.

I know I am not alone. I do know that I am tenacious, resilient, flexible and adaptable. So adaptability and innovation come naturally. Isn’t it interesting that is exactly the combination that our world needs now? Each of us brings a wealth of experience to every situation that could be “game changing.” We may just not be taking the time to think about it consciously and if we did, could make our world even better.

So when I read that Intrepid wants to support the unique characteristics each individual brings to the job, I nearly danced with joy. My urge to evolve has been brewing for a while, and now staying the same when I have so much more to explore is no longer tolerable. I must bring more of “me” to my life in general—and make that work for me on the job. I’m seizing the opportunity to take risks: some professional, some personal, but all to encourage my creative side to come out and positively impact my life, and innovation, on and off the job.

Making space for innovation

I’ve been experimenting with bucking my status quo for a couple of weeks now, and so far it is not always comfortable, but it is rewarding. The most work-facing change I’ve made is the decision to share my story. I decided to write publicly—here I am world—and now there is no going back. If stepping out of your comfort zone is a way to spur innovation, I am well on my way!

I also took a figure drawing class. It is something that I have wanted to pursue for years, but could never let myself do. It took a conscious rewiring of my neural pathway. I consciously fought off all of the practical reasons I should not go, and I followed through with it. The class was good, but the fact that I signed up and went was the major victory. It reinforced to me that just “getting there” is important.

Finally, I repainted a room in my house. Visually reinforcing a fresh start is a great reminder that I am turning a corner and allowing room for new ideas and thought processes. I figure if I scatter fresh starts all around me it can’t help but support innovation.

The best part is, just by “getting there” and making these small changes, I feel so energized. I am passionate about helping people be the best they can be—that is why I chose to be a training professional. Along the way, in the business of life, and the “doing what I need to do for the next career step,” I did not consider that to help people be their best, I need to be my best. I need to stay happy and energized for my learners and for myself. I’ve started now, and I don’t ever want to stop. Care to join me?

What are you doing to keep yourself energized and refresh your perspectives? Let us know in the comments below. To read other industry leaders’ perspectives on the growing importance of innovation in the workplace, download Intrepid’s complimentary eBook, “The Innovation Worker: Rethinking the Knowledge Worker for the 21st Century.”

There’s a misconception about innovation that I’d like to address. I was having a conversation with my friend Martin about innovation. I asked him what he thought about his role in the innovation process and he said that he has no role at all. He believes that he’s not high enough on the corporate ladder to worry about innovation nor does he have the proper “wiring” to come up with big ideas. I believe his exact words were, “I’m not Steve Jobs.”

Martin’s comments did not surprise me. In my time as an evangelist for innovation, I’ve heard his concerns repeated from many people. The misconception about being innovative is you have to be someone important or need to be born with “the gift.” The truth is, the only prerequisite to being an innovator is you need to have ideas.

A dime a dozen.

Do you have ideas? They say that ideas are a dime a dozen so I’m sure you do! Ideas are important because it’s what allows you to make connections between things that have no reason to be connected otherwise.

Jonah Lehrer talks about how masking tape was invented in his book Imagine: How Creativity Works. The man behind masking tape wasn’t a brilliant scientist or a smart executive. His name was Richard Drew and he was a sandpaper salesman for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. Richard noticed that auto body workers were frustrated with the tape they used when painting cars. The tape was so sticky it peeled the paint right off! He saw a need for a less sticky tape and realized that the adhesive that held the tiny granules of sand to the paper of his product might work. The product was a huge success and soon after, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing became 3M, one of the worlds most innovative companies today.

Tenet #5

Richard Drew had an idea but I’m sure it wasn’t his first. I bet Richard was always thinking about his work, his family, his friends, and his life. These thoughts and observations led Richard to his big “Ah Ha!” moment. Innovation is the final product of thousands of thoughts, ideas, and connections, therefore, to innovate, you must make to time to think.

The role that we play in the innovation process will grow as companies begin to expect workers at all levels to be innovators. If innovation becomes a common duty on job descriptions, then the innovation worker should never stop innovating. In other words, the innovation worker should never stop thinking constructively because that’s what made people – like Steve Jobs – so good at what they do.

The innovation worker has the skill of thinking in his or her repertoire. Being innovative is a skill – not a genetic gift. However, like any other skill, it needs to be developed to be useful. Innovation workers know how to think, when to think, and how to recognize valuable connections. These are things that anyone can do so, Martin, if you’re reading this – no, you’re not Steve Jobs but the good news is, you don’t have to be. You already have everything you need to be an innovator. All you have to do start thinking.

In April, we introduced Stan Workman, the Innovation Worker to the world. Stan is our spokesman for the new breed of workers that people should be cultivating and hiring in their organizations. Sam Herring, co-founder and CEO of Intrepid Learning states in his article, Transforming the Workplace: Critical Skills and Learning Methods for the Successful 21st Century Worker, “We need leaders and employees with foresight who can identify new opportunities, design creative solutions, and bring them to market. Simply put, we need innovation workers, not just knowledge workers.”

Promoting Innovation

In 2012, Intrepid Learning conducted original research – including one-on-one interviews and a survey of over 300 people – to gain a deeper understanding of the role of the innovation worker. The one-on-one interviews will be published in our next eBook on May 2nd. In the meantime, please enjoy these two infographics created from our survey responses. More infographics like these will be included in the Innovation Worker eBook.

How does your company help you be an innovator?

Does your company promote innovation by giving you time to work on your own projects or is innovation a “nice to have?” What are some tools or best practices you use to help develop your ideas? Let’s continue our conversation in the comments section below.

It’s hard to come up with game-changing ideas when you’re juggling a project deadline, taking your kids to basketball practice, and deciding what’s for dinner. Maybe that’s why I find the time spent in my morning shower or waiting for my bus so valuable. They are some of the few moments I have during the day when I can just… think. Although it seems like great ideas happen spontaneously, these “Ah ha!” moments are actually a culmination of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of individual thoughts.

Tenet #4

Although being busy can be satisfying, sometimes it’s not exactly the most productive way to use our time. That’s why the innovation worker takes time to think about new ideas. We need to set time aside to explore our ideas without the interruptions of our email, our bosses, or our significant others. Our ideas need to percolate freely and mingle with other thoughts to form connections that lead up to that big “AH HA!” moment.

I suggest you make time to do something that isn’t related to your job: take a quiet walk, take a photography class (unless photography is your job!), dance around your office, or just sit with your eyes closed for a while. The down time will help you make unexpected connections that can’t be forced into a tightly-regimented schedule. Let your mind wander for 15 minutes a day, because who knows what kinds of amazing ideas it will run into.

by Derek Shipley

In part one of this blog post, I talked about the switch we made in Intrepid’s Global Delivery Services department from a short, “dip-and-kick” onboarding program to what I like to call “continuous onboarding.” It’s a more comprehensive, multi-day program that increases employee engagement and trust in our company, and ultimately has led to a far more rewarding experience for our employees. In this post, I’ll lay out the three aspects of the program that I think made the difference for us, and could potentially help your company as well.

What We Did

At Intrepid, we established a program with three main aspects to make onboarding a more continuous process. First, we lengthened the initial time the employee spends training before we send them to a client site from one day to five days. Second, we involved senior stakeholders at Intrepid during the initial onboarding process, up to and including the CEO. Finally, we incorporated regular checkpoints during the employee’s initial 90 days with our company, both to receive feedback from the employee (for example, to learn what, if anything, they wish they had known earlier in their tenure with us) and to confirm that the job is an appropriate fit for that employee.

Benefits and Costs

You’re likely questioning whether you have the resources to keep an employee from actually doing their job for a full week when you’re used to having them up and running a day after they walk in the door. But we discovered that by making the time and resource commitment up front, we were able to head off issues that could become more serious further down the road. We take more time to assess employees’ skills, give them a comprehensive, client-specific boot camp so that they can perform their jobs seamlessly alongside our client’s employees, and create a bridge of trust between Intrepid and our employees so that from day one, they feel comfortable going to their Intrepid manager with any concerns.

Client Conversations

Obviously this kind of onboarding commitment means that our client will have to wait for a longer period of time before a new Intrepid employee can be brought on site. So we made sure to include our client in the process. We talked with them about the value this continuous onboarding approach would bring to them. What really helped them to see the value of this process was the idea of running a client-specific boot camp during the employee’s first week at Intrepid. It’s helped our employees to function very effectively inside our client’s organization and within their culture.

Getting To Know You

We also make sure our employees get to know our senior stakeholders during their first week. That means having lunch with the CEO, several vice presidents, and the client during their first week. They learn the faces and personalities behind the names and job titles. That little change goes a long way in helping our employees to feel connected to Intrepid’s culture very quickly. Personally, it’s also more fun for me – I can recall the names of almost everyone we’ve hired in past year. Before we instituted continuous onboarding, I’d recognize maybe 30% of the employees. We have new employees coming in every week, and every time, I get a chance to learn something about them and make a better connection than I could before.

And Finally…Regular Assessments

Regular assessments at the 15-, 30-, 60-, and 90-day periods are an essential part of our ongoing onboarding process. When our employees see our management team, they’re much more engaged with us. We challenge employees to give us regular feedback. We ask them, “you’ve been out here 60 days, is there a piece of information you could have used earlier?” And that helps improve our onboarding for the next group.

Regular assessments also help us figure out where we’ve failed to make a good match between the employee and a particular position. In the rare instance where this isn’t the right job for the person, being able to check in with them helps us recognize those situations as soon as possible. And the sooner we recognize that, the sooner all parties involved can get back on the path to success.

Has your organization implemented an outstanding onboarding program? Have you learned from your successes – or your failures? We want to hear about it! Leave us a comment about your memorable onboarding experiences below.

I was in the checkout line at the grocery store the other day when I met Henry. Henry was going on and on about his idea that was going to make him famous! He was quite the talker because he told everyone in my line and the line next to ours about it. He didn’t care if you were a stranger or the President of the United States – you were going to hear about his idea. Henry was absolutely certain that putting Silly Putty in his bologna sandwich would be the most delicious sandwich in the history of sandwiches!

Oh, did I mention that Henry was eight years old?

Tenet #3

We innovation workers are not afraid to share our thoughts and ideas with anyone who’s willing to listen. Whether it be our peers, the maintenance staff, or the CEO, the innovation worker talks to employees up and down the ladder. Sure, ideas are a dime a dozen – but some are one in a million (and maybe worth millions). Being able to talk to your fellow coworkers – no matter where they are on the company org chart – is imperative to fostering a culture of innovation.

Keep in mind that if a culture of sharing ideas is one side of the coin, an organization that supports these ideas is the other. It takes someone who’s sharing ideas and another who’s listening to smash open doors to new insights and connections.

While I’m sure that Henry’s S.P. and B. (Silly Putty and bologna) sandwich won’t be the next P.B. and J., he exemplifies an Innovation Worker behavior that will suit him well in the future.

by Christine Collet

In part 1 of our blog series, we talked about why we created the video challenge; in part 2, we talked about how we made it happen. Now we’re here to explain what the video challenge yielded: what were quantitative and qualitative results?

How do we think we did?

Almost immediately there was a buzz around the project. We heard from people—by Yammer (our internal social network), in emails, and in casual conversation—that they had taken the time to watch a video. Often, stopping to watch one led them to watching multiple submissions. It also seemed that the more videos we posted, the more inspired people were to contribute.

By the end of the project, we had 17 video submissions, which represents a surprisingly successful 20% response rate. There was an amazingly diverse selection of contributions, rich with applicable expertise. Of those who submitted, 72% responded that participation was easy and enjoyable.

The experience was also beneficial because it proved so memorable. The qualities inherent to the video format—short, interesting, and personal—presented people’s lessons in an easily absorbable way. Those of us who participated still remember concepts from the videos and quote them to each other as “virtual guidance” even months later.

We were feeling pretty successful and proud of the contest, but we wanted to know if our real goal had been achieved. Did our audience find it helpful?

How did it work for the participants?

To gauge success, we we solicited feedback from our participants. The results were interesting, and there were even a few surprises. Through the survey we discovered a few themes: what was beneficial for consultants, how much the interaction meant for company engagement and community building, and how we could make the process easier to contribute next time.

On the most basic level, the initiative was a success because it opened the lines of communication between employees in a way that was both beneficial and enjoyable. 87.5 % of survey respondents reported that they liked the informal presentations and seeing different people’s perspectives, and 75% of respondents thought the videos were engaging.

Participants also volunteered some surprise information about how the videos helped people “get to know other consultants,” “feel more connected (as a team/company),” and “benefit from others’ expertise” after seeing the videos. The community building that happened as a result of the challenge was unexpected and welcome. I had personally heard from Eileen that she felt more comfortable reaching out to someone through instant message, phone, or email after she’d ”met” them through their video. “Seeing someone’s mannerisms, their office setup, their daughter’s Hello Kitty notebook by the printer created a more personal connection.”

Our survey respondents also commented that it was beneficial for them personally to create a video in support of informal learning as part of the challenge. Appearing on camera helped push some of them outside of their individual comfort zones, and creating the videos provided an opportunity to creatively express themselves.

Results, Results, Results

Our key takeaway from the challenge was not only that that rich media messaging resulted in a better sense of community among our consultants, but that video messages are memorable and easy to apply.

Of course, the journey wasn’t entirely smooth. There were a few bumps along the way, including learning to be very prescriptive about technical requirements in order to reduce size limit frustrations and ease posting. In the end, though, the bumps provided the fine-tuning we needed to plan for how our next challenge can be even more successful and beneficial to our team.

Have you had success with crowdsourcing efforts in your organization? Has user-generated video enriched your learners’ experiences? Read part 1 and part 2 of our “How We Did It” blogs and tell us about your experiences by commenting below.

Christine Collet is a senior learning consultant, based in Seattle. As a learning and development professional, she is passionate about implementing strategic learning programs aligned with measurable business goals for global organizations.

Eileen Van Tyne is a senior learning consultant, based in Oakland, California. She has over 11 years experience performing analysis, design and development to help clients achieve business goals through learning solutions.

Being innovative often means going out on a limb and taking a leap of faith. That kind of risk-taking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, especially when you’re the only one willing to stand behind a new idea, and sometimes the fear of failure is enough to make everyone stick to the safety of familiar ideas.

Tenet #2

Innovation workers are brave, but we can’t make change happen all on our own. That’s why the second tenet of the innovation worker is so important: the innovation worker is supported by his (or her) organization. The basis for innovative ideas may come as a stroke of inspiration to a single person, but those ideas will go nowhere without the encouragement, belief, and hard work of countless others.

It’s been said that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Is it any coincidence that ideas are sometimes called “brain children”? If you want to see your idea grow up big and strong, make sure you enlist the help of your whole community to make it so.