Innovate or Die? And the Best Places to Work

Innovation is a buzzword in business now.  In a fast-paced world where change and adapting is necessary in order to survive in business, innovation seems to be what all people want to point to that keeps companies alive.  “Innovate or die” we hear.   But is it worth all the hype?

Despite the fact that I often hate cliché words or phrases (don’t ask me about what I think about the word “synergy”, for example), I’m on the innovation bandwagon. I believe in today’s business world it truly is what separates the winners from the losers.   And you can see why in the way that the Business Dictionary defines innovation as “The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay”.  This view of innovation connects it to why it separates the winners from the losers-  it’s the process by which value is created.

But we often speak of innovation in terms of products or services. While very important, my focus, however, is on how people or human resources/capital innovation takes shape in the workplace and how it contributes that value that translates into dollars and cents.   Interestingly enough, many of the most innovative companies are also labeled as best places to work.   This is no coincidence.

We are now at Horizon Point self-proclaiming ourselves as “Workplace Innovators” (you can see more on this at our newly designed website),  helping companies and communities hire, grow and lead in an “outside of the box” (there I go again with another cliché) way.  Which happens to help us lead them to be award-winning companies recognized for their people practices.

After spending a few months delving into the research on innovation specifically from a human resources lens, and talking to company leaders who drive the best workplaces, I will be spending the next few weeks covering what creates innovative workplaces.  These areas will include:

1. You can hire for fit AND diversity- How the most innovative companies hire
2. The name of the game is FREEDOM- How innovative companies motivate and retain the best
3. Rules to preserve freedom and culture- How innovative companies go about rule-making.
4. Does size matter? How innovation and entrepreneurship grow in all sizes.
5. What does a HR leader at an innovative company look like?
6. You can’t innovate without your house in order- Capital Resources, you gotta have them
7. A Final Word on How to Create an Innovative Organization: Do you believe are people fundamentally good?

In each post, I’ll make a case of why each thing is vital to an innovative workplace and then give suggestions or a checklist on how to examine your organization against this standard and make revisions or changes to adapt your organization towards these standards for innovation.

If you’re interested in diving into the details I looked at to draw these conclusions, there will be a number of articles and books linked in the posts. Overall though, check out these must reads that are grounded in research and/or first-hand experience from innovation thought-leaders:

1. The Innovator’s Dilemma (and many of its footnote references)
2. The Lean Start-Up
3. Steve Jobs
4. Work Rules! (and many of its footnote references)
5. Drive
6. Entreleadership
7. Great By Choice
8. And one cool tool I discovered in the midst of all this research is http://buzzsumo.com/. It is a content analyzer that shows you, by entering keywords, the top posts by social shares and the top influencers.  Make sure you check these for quality and validity though if you are going to use them; just because it’s shared the most doesn’t mean it’s the best.

We hope you find our couple of months of hiatus from blog posting valuable as you read more about what we’ve discovered as we intensely researched the topic of innovation in the workplace.

What do you think makes a workplace innovative or a best place to work?