The case for making innovation contribution a part of every performance evaluation.
Over the past several years, my co-author Ron Price and I have seen an increasing number of companies embrace innovation as part of their strategic plan, even going so far as to create new company roles such as chief innovation officer, innovation analyst, innovation engineer, and more. In fact, a 2018 CB Insights State of Innovation study reported that 85% of executives see innovation as an important initiative.
Leaders have realized that in order to stay relevant and competitive, they must make innovation an integral part of their business decisions, efforts, and goals—at every level. Simply put, companies with innovative cultures will lead the way in business.
We define innovation as creating new value. It is a misconception that innovation must be technology-based, or involve groundbreaking new ideas and products. Innovation can be found in everyday process improvements, looking for small changes that can be made to enhance products, procedures, services, and even customer perceptions of your organization. These incremental innovations are ultimately the ones that make a significant difference, helping you gradually change the way you do business for the better.
This is why companies are beginning to see that investing in innovation and making it a priority throughout the company, beyond just the innovation officer or the innovation team, is good business practice. The employees within your organization who are dealing with customers on a daily basis, who are executing your processes and procedures, and who are developing your products, these are the people who have the best insights for how to improve everything you are doing. This is why all employees should be involved in the innovation process.
Innovation is not just for the select few; it is for everyone in your organization. We work with companies around the world to help them develop cultures of innovation in which every employee plays a critical part.
You might be surprised to discover that innovation actually requires six stages for successful execution. Not only that, but the person who excels in stage one generally does not excel in stage two. It takes different types of people in each stage to move innovation all the way from idea to scale. This is another reason why every person in your organization, from administrators and support staff, all the way up to the CEO, each has an important role to play in innovation.
Making innovation a part of everyone’s job naturally makes innovation a part of everyone’s performance review. By determining which role each of your employees will play in the stages of innovation, you will be able to easily add these goals to your company’s performance review process.
Measuring innovation contributions can be simple. Here are three ways to add innovation contribution to your performance evaluations:
Measuring ideas. All innovation occurs as a result of idea generation. In fact, ideas are the currency of innovation. Idea generation is an easy and effective way to measure innovation contribution. Employees often feel like coming up with ideas is outside of their job scope. Some may even believe that ideas are not allowed. The more you treat the people in your organization like the valuable idea factories that they are, the more compelled they will feel to contribute. When you recognized people for their ideas, and even expect it, they will feel tied to the success of the company.
Measuring teamwork. Too often we think of performance evaluations as a measurement of the individual, not the team. But if we want employees to function well as part of a team, we need to include teamwork as part of their evaluation. At each stage of the innovation process, a team of people is required to deliver the desired outcome. For example, the team that brainstorms ideas, the team that validates those ideas, the team that tests solutions, the team that works with customers, and so on. The success, the flow, and the productivity of teams should be a part of each member’s performance evaluation.
Measuring potential. If we really want to optimize performance, especially when it comes to innovation, we need to start with understanding potential, which is made up of unique talent, skills, and strengths. By measuring how well the employee’s potential aligns with the stages of innovation, we can allow employees to participate where they will shine. Having a performance conversation around natural talents, developed skills, and honed strengths will contribute to more than innovation; it will impact your organization on a deeper level.
Potential that is clearly understood, developed, and aligned with strategy is what creates optimal performance in any initiative, not just innovation.
Originally published July 16, 2019, by HR.com | Photo by Maranda Vandergriff on Unsplash
