Most people don't see the connect between a professional business, such as data management or IT consulting, with a skateboarding company. When you consider the numbers though, there are plenty of positive takeaways that you can gain from looking to successful businesses outside of your industry for inspiration and their unique take on innovation. Successful skateboard companies are in fact successful businesses that can be modeled for components, which can tune up areas of your business that you may not always pay as much attention to as you should. There are plenty of things that skateboard companies can teach about innovation and here are 3 of those things.
ExperimentationFor innovation to work at its best you have to make sure that the fear of failure is removed. This translates to not being afraid to try new things and experiment, which can often bear the best results and biggest blockbuster innovations. Making sure that you create an environment that not only reduces the fear of failure but encourages it in a controlled process, your staff will come up with more innovative ideas that can be tested and implemented. Balancing the failures and using them as teaching tools will let your staff know that they can strive to think outside of the box and be rewarded for this.
Peer Recognition
People that innovate, and most people in general, are motivated by things other than money and notoriety. Once they have a comfortable amount of stability and success, people are then more motivated by being connected to the community and peer recognition. By building this into your compensation model you can encourage more creative and innovative thinking as your staff tries to increase the amount of recognition that they receive, especially once they have some success or see their peers have success.
People that innovate, and most people in general, are motivated by things other than money and notoriety. Once they have a comfortable amount of stability and success, people are then more motivated by being connected to the community and peer recognition. By building this into your compensation model you can encourage more creative and innovative thinking as your staff tries to increase the amount of recognition that they receive, especially once they have some success or see their peers have success.
Tighter Feedback Loops
Making sure that you get actionable data to work from right away will make sure that you can make faster decisions when you are implementing or testing a new innovation. It is important to try and get the information as soon as possible so that you can allocate the appropriate amount of resources and achieve the most efficiency. Building a process and relying on the data, will give you an edge and allow you to make the decisions more quickly. Finding new feedback loops and ways of analyzing the data will also allow you to speed up the process and save even more time and money.
Making sure that you get actionable data to work from right away will make sure that you can make faster decisions when you are implementing or testing a new innovation. It is important to try and get the information as soon as possible so that you can allocate the appropriate amount of resources and achieve the most efficiency. Building a process and relying on the data, will give you an edge and allow you to make the decisions more quickly. Finding new feedback loops and ways of analyzing the data will also allow you to speed up the process and save even more time and money.
