Most people get innovation work wrong. They equal innovation with great idea, the Archimedes in the bath tub, Newton under the apple tree or Steven Jobs, having breakthrough ideas that his employees will execute – this famous Eureka moment. The simple truth is that this is almost every time far from reality – good innovations do need processes, stages that are done within teams. And this means to value team work. The surprising fact from many superior innovators is that they are not arrogant, brash but rather the opposite: friendly, generous and open up to listen to others. This means that generosity can be a competitive advantage, enabling you not to lock out sources of potential innovation.

So, you don’t need the best people but the best team. Rather think of very good innovators as knowledge brokers than anything else and you don’t need the prototypical “innovative” persons that break china to achieve great innovations. Empowerment and listening to all team members is a crucial thing. And that you can’t rush it. It needs a process and a certain time to come to a goal. This means that you need to empower the people in your team and this means that you need to create an environment in which your people can thrive and I do not speak about the fantastic espresso and the snickers for free :-) what have you done recently for supporting such an environment in your organization? Perhaps something you can think over with a good espresso over the weekend. Happy weekend!