How to Achieve a Culture of Innovation
The word innovation gets thrown around a lot in Silicon Valley. Companies tout themselves as leaders in innovation, looking for highly innovative employees. But how is it possible to achieve this? Here’s how I’ve managed to integrate a culture of innovation into the Catalog & Merchandising Systems org at Walmart Labs.
First, consider your hiring practices. Your first true interaction with a potential employee is during the interview. At this time we really get an understanding for a candidate’s personality, so it’s the perfect time to screen for how innovation plays a role in their working style.
I equate innovation with curiosity, because it is the act of being curious which leads to new ways of thinking and new ideas.
So I ask questions that will tell me how curious this person is. For example, I ask about their favorite app, and if they could change anything about it, what would it be? If you are using a product every day, you’ll likely have an opinion on it. We get to the root of their curiosity by determining how they think about that app. If they have ideas on how to improve it, make it more interesting, make it faster, less complicated, etc. we can gauge their curiosity, and therefore their propensity for innovation.
Second, recognize the importance of diversity and the reasoning behind it. Diversity comes in many forms from culture, upbringing, geographic location, socioeconomic group, even the number of siblings one has. All of these factors play into more prominent forms of diversity such as gender identity, race, and physical and neuro-diversity. It’s important to realize that none of these groups are a monolith — recognize the individuality of each person and what their specific experience brings to their outlook and ultimately to the team. Focus on creating teams where people are different from each other, because they will come up with much more interesting ideas.
And finally, if you claim to have a vested interest in innovation, you have to put your money where your mouth is by allowing your teams the freedom to explore and be curious. This doesn’t necessarily mean giving time off in place of regular responsibilities; not every company is able to offer that. But if someone comes to you with an idea that sounds a little out there or different from “how it’s always been done”, give it a chance. Maybe they have to work on it in their own time, maybe there’s time or budget to get it done during work hours, maybe not. But as managers we must be clear in our intentions, and allow those opportunities when we can.
