In the quest to foster a culture of innovation, we’ve gathered insights from CEOs and founders on empowering employees to be the catalysts for change. From cultivating a no-failure feedback culture to specifying outcomes for employee-led innovation, explore fifteen compelling strategies that have led to groundbreaking ideas and projects.
- Cultivating a No-Failure Feedback Culture
- Encouraging Fresh Inputs for New Outputs
- Empowering Through Customer-Centric Innovations
- Fostering Open Dialogue for Sustainable Solutions
- Holding Innovation Workshops for Collaborative Growth
- Leading with Trust to Spur Innovation
- Strategic Planning for Empowered Innovation
- Valuing Stakeholder Ideas for Product Evolution
- Transforming Support Requests into Innovative Features
- Embracing Risk for Transformative Outcomes
- Supporting Diverse Perspectives for Innovation
- Trusting Teams to Drive Product Development
- Mobilizing Grassroots Innovation via Crowdsourcing
- Allocating Budgets for Predictive Data Science
- Specifying Outcomes for Employee-Led Innovation
Cultivating a No-Failure Feedback Culture
We cultivate a culture of no-failure feedback at our company that treats missteps as learning moments. When things don’t go as planned or hoped for, instead of asking employees “Why did you do that?” we ask “What could you have done differently or better?” This kind of attitude has empowered our teams to take more risks, try new things, and innovate.
The result has been everything from new product offerings like a fully immersive 3-D virtual puzzle event, production value like a spy-interruption effect using a new type of software, to even company culture and benefit ideas like a “birthday PTO day.” This kind of framing shows employees that you are supportive of new ideas even when they do not go as planned, and outsources creativity to the entire workforce instead of placing the responsibility solely on the leadership team.
Tasia Duske, CEO, Museum Hack
Encouraging Fresh Inputs for New Outputs
At one point, my team felt stagnant—we were doing all the same things we had always done. I called a team meeting, and we watched a TED Talk and talked about the importance of bringing fresh ideas to the table.
The theme was “New inputs will lead to new outputs.” I challenged my team members to focus more on consuming new content (books, podcasts, videos, conversations, etc.) with the goal of innovating more consistently. Every week, we intentionally start our team meeting by sharing what new ideas we learned and whether or not that helped us innovate at work.
Logan Mallory, Vice President of Marketing, Motivosity
Empowering Through Customer-Centric Innovations
Northumbrian Water provides water and sewerage services to over 2.7 million people in the northeast of England, making it one of the UK’s largest utility companies.
They set themselves the goal of becoming the utility industry’s most innovative company, and they turned to Hedgehog Lab for guidance in reshaping the way they think and engage with their customers.
One of their main challenges was the fact that their call center staff were spending most of their time fielding basic questions from customers. They asked us to take a fresh look at their business to explore new channels that would help them surpass their regulatory requirements and improve customer experience.
Initially, the idea was to make the training better or quicker, but our approach led us to take the volume of calls away from the call center and parse inquiries via the Alexa skill. By providing our team time for customer empathy and ideation, with the bandwidth to deeply understand each user’s needs, they proposed innovative solutions tailored to them.
As part of the user research conducted with customers, it soon became apparent that the most desired feature by users was information about water usage and any nearby road disruptions.
Northumbrian Water already had a database of facts which were used on the website; these were suitably trimmed for use in the Alexa skill. There was no up-to-date database of disruptions, so instead, the live customer care Twitter feed was continuously scraped by an Azure Logic App to pick up rolling announcements of issues at various postcodes around the northeast and inserted into a database on Azure using the postcode (for example, DH1) as a key field.
Following the launch of an internal prototype, the Alexa Skill was eventually launched to Northumbrian Water customers on the Alexa Skills Store.
Ray Clarke, Chief Design Officer, hedgehog lab
Fostering Open Dialogue for Sustainable Solutions
At ContractorBond.org, we’ve cultivated an environment where empowerment and innovation go hand-in-hand by encouraging open dialogue and collaborative problem-solving across all levels of our organization. This approach allows employees to voice their ideas and suggestions without fear of dismissal, fostering a culture where innovation can thrive. We provide the necessary tools and resources, such as access to the latest industry research and technology, to turn viable ideas into actionable projects.
A prime example of how innovation may arise from an empowered workforce is the creation of a new, environmentally-friendly material mix for building projects. A member of our team put forth a concept for a low-carbon, sustainable substitute for conventional concrete. Through cooperative ideation sessions and the utilization of our industrial connections and academic institutions for research and development, we succeeded in formulating a workable, eco-friendly concrete blend. This invention not only reduced the environmental impact of our projects but also established us as pioneers of sustainable building techniques.
The significance of enabling staff members to take the initiative to recognize problems and suggest solutions is demonstrated by this success story. We have made tremendous progress in our field by cultivating a positive work atmosphere that recognizes the contributions of every team member. It shows that motivated and appreciated staff members are more likely to make novel contributions that advance the business.
Michael Benoit, Founder, Contractor Bond
Holding Innovation Workshops for Collaborative Growth
In my business, empowering employees for innovation is a cornerstone of our culture. We do this by fostering an open and collaborative environment where every team member feels valued and heard. One way we encourage innovation is through regular “innovation workshops” where employees across different departments come together to brainstorm and discuss new ideas without any hierarchical barriers.
For example, in our cloud hosting business, this culture of empowerment led to a groundbreaking project. During one of these workshops, a junior developer suggested using machine learning algorithms to optimize our server allocation process. Initially, this was a radical idea, but we gave the team the resources and freedom to explore it. This project not only resulted in significant efficiency improvements in our server utilization but also reduced our operational costs.
This success story reinforced the importance of listening to ideas from all levels of the organization. By empowering our employees to share their insights and providing them with the tools and resources to develop these ideas, we not only foster a culture of innovation but also drive tangible improvements in our business operations. This approach has been instrumental in keeping us competitive and forward-thinking in the rapidly evolving cloud hosting industry.
Kamran Maqbool, CEO, Green Cloud Hosting
Leading with Trust to Spur Innovation
I learned the hard way early on that true innovation springs from teams feeling genuinely empowered, not just motivated by directives.
My method was flawed—I micromanaged projects, believing my oversight spurred excellence. Yet, progress stalled. Constructive feedback exposed my need to let go, foster autonomy, and rally people around a shared vision for our recruiting software. We reignited momentum when I stepped back, listened, and supported my team leading design sprints fueled by their passions. Unburdened employees drove innovations aligned with our North Star but shaped by their insights.
Now, we hold regular forums exploring obstacles and opportunities to propel projects forward, not just report status. Our most incredible breakthroughs happen when we unite around understanding each other’s strengths and obstacles. I’m continually humbled and hopeful to see what we can achieve when leading with trust, not control.
Lou Reverchuk, Co-Founder and CEO, EchoGlobal
Strategic Planning for Empowered Innovation
As the founder of our SaaS business, we prioritize empowering our employees for innovation through strategic planning. We understand that innovation requires more than just throwing ideas around; it necessitates a well-defined plan with milestones, key dependencies, and expected outcomes. For instance, when launching a new product, our plan serves as a pipeline, clearly defining success metrics and holding our business accountable.
In measuring success, we go beyond traditional revenue-centric yardsticks. A notable example of our empowered workforce contributing to a groundbreaking idea involved a project aimed at enhancing user experience. Our team, empowered to think creatively, streamlined the product interface based on customer feedback. This not only resulted in a more user-friendly product but also demonstrated how employee-driven insights can lead to innovative solutions that prioritize user satisfaction and overall product excellence.
Mohammed Mukhtar, Founder, PocketAI
Valuing Stakeholder Ideas for Product Evolution
Our unique product, a custom-made video book, lends itself to constant innovation and evolution. We understand the value of all our stakeholders, from staff and investors to customers and vendors, as they express their ideas for further development, adjustments, innovation, and broadening of our brand. Our employees are purposefully empowered to consider new opportunities for our product. We gather casually and in organized meetings, seeking their thoughts, experiences, ideas, and suggestions.
One example of how these meaningful contributions have created groundbreaking ideas for our product line happened during a holiday sales season. It was at this time when one of our highly respected and empowered employees asked about offering a gift box for our customers’ new video books.
“Wow, that could work,” the team replied. And in a relatively short period of time, we added this feature to our customers’ purchasing selection page, creating a custom-made box, perfectly suited to display and protect their precious legacy creation.
To date, this purchase add-on has sold out numerous times, reordered in larger and larger quantities. We now have some clients asking for custom printing on these gift boxes, yet another way to showcase our product and increase our revenue.
Ashley Kenny, Co-Founder, Heirloom Video Books
Transforming Support Requests into Innovative Features
We see every customer support request or complaint as an opportunity for innovation. We encourage our teams to think creatively by asking, “How can we evolve so this issue doesn’t arise again?” This approach has sparked numerous enhancements in our software, but the most notable innovation has been our “troubleshooting tool,” a feature that was the first of its kind in the market.
The idea originated from our support team’s frustration with repetitive troubleshooting tasks. We challenged them to create a solution that would enable our clients to address common issues on their own. The result was beyond our expectations, significantly reducing support tickets and increasing customer satisfaction. This tool solved a critical problem and showcased how empowering our employees to think innovatively can lead to groundbreaking solutions.
Erman Kuplu, CEO, Analyzify
Embracing Risk for Transformative Outcomes
At TechNews180, we foster innovation by embracing the possibility of failure and actively encouraging employees to pursue risky initiatives. By de-dramatizing failure, we create an environment where our workforce feels empowered to approach innovation with openness and creativity.
An exemplary instance of our empowered workforce contributing to groundbreaking ideas involves a cross-functional team. Given the freedom to explore unconventional solutions, they devised a unique content-delivery system that significantly enhanced user engagement on our platform. This success validated our approach to empowering employees for innovation and also reinforced the idea that acknowledging and embracing risk can lead to transformative outcomes.
Neil Hodgson-Coyle, COO, TechNews180
Supporting Diverse Perspectives for Innovation
Empowerment for innovation starts with a strong base of support and trust. We build that by offering above-par salaries, healthcare benefits, educational stipends, flexible PTO, and more, because when you care for people well, they’re prepared and able to innovate rather than work simply to survive.
We also strive to build strong team diversity because we believe that building the best product and company requires diverse perspectives and lived experiences in the room. Great innovation doesn’t come from the same group of voices repeating the same things, but from making safe spaces and opportunities for every unique voice and perspective.
Robert Kaskel, Chief People Officer, Checkr
Trusting Teams to Drive Product Development
At ZenMaid, empowering our team for innovation starts with trust and understanding. I lead by ensuring each member knows how their work contributes to our larger goals. They’re not just employees; they’re crucial players, each hired for their unique abilities. This ethos of trust and space to use their skills fully has transformed our team dynamics.
The impact of this approach? A team that feels respected and in control of their work. It’s never just about completing tasks; it’s about owning their roles and making a real impact. This philosophy has spread throughout our leadership, creating a confident, committed workforce.
A prime example of this empowerment is when our developer team, enjoying the flexibility to work remotely from anywhere in the world, constantly develops new features to improve our product.
Amar Ghose, CEO, ZenMaid
Mobilizing Grassroots Innovation via Crowdsourcing
I believe breakthrough ideas originate from frontline staff living the daily challenges, not from executive edicts. Fostering grassroots innovation means establishing formal pathways for any employee to suggest inventive improvements, paired with cultures that recognize contributors irrespective of role seniority.
Rather than top-down mandates, look to mobilize internal crowdsourcing campaigns that allow proposals on bettering workflows, upgrading systems, or enhancing product offerings. Transfer some decision rights for smaller-scale experiments to local teams for rapid iteration, fueled by intrinsic passions.
The autonomy to build prototypes addressing real pain points often yields the most practical solutions.
Incentivizing bottom-up innovation through open contribution processes ensures your best concepts scale from the frontlines rather than being siloed by rigid hierarchies. Allow your collective knowledge to shine by loosening the reins and spotlighting promising employee inventions publicly. Workers feel genuinely empowered when leadership clearly connects innovation to advancing the company’s vision.
Nitai Aventaggiato, Founder and CEO, Helpmonks
Allocating Budgets for Predictive Data Science
They set aside a budget for research and innovation for every department. Last year, our marketing team used the funds to research more on data science.
We focused on how we could use data science to create a more accurate and predictive model for our consumer behavior. We focused on how to determine which variables were insightful from a large volume of data and how to use ML to extract these insights and get a deeper understanding of our consumer behavior that was previously unseen. We worked with a data analyst who used an innovative machine-learning algorithm and developed a predictive model with exceptional accuracy.
Now, we use this model to understand the market trends and accurately predict future patterns. It helped us tailor our digital marketing strategies more accurately, significantly improving the return on investment for our clients. Adding research and innovation to the budget proves Promodo prioritizes and encourages innovation.
Valerie Lavska, CMO, Promodo
Specifying Outcomes for Employee-Led Innovation
At ProActuary Jobs, we try to focus on specifying the end outcomes we want to achieve without worrying too much about specifying exactly how this should be achieved. This provides our employees and freelancers with the opportunity to innovate as they see fit, and as a result, they feel much more empowered.
As an example, we recently launched a new global actuarial job site as a new product to our offerings. A critical component of this launch involved developing a sophisticated filtering system to accurately categorize jobs by various criteria, such as function, qualification levels, and sectors. Recognizing the complexity and the need for innovative thinking, we assigned this task to one of our employees, granting them complete responsibility and freedom over the execution. The end result was excellent, and by providing autonomy in terms of the solution, we felt we arrived at a much better outcome than we would have if instead we had tried to constrain the task too much with our own ideas.
Moreover, the employee in charge of this project reported a higher level of job satisfaction, underscoring the motivational impact of empowerment. This experience has validated our belief in the importance of empowering our team, proving it to be a catalyst for innovation and a driver of successful outcomes.
Dr. Mark Farrell (FIA), CEO, Associate Professor and Actuary, ProActuary Jobs
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