Innovation need not be a quest for groundbreaking ideas. Companies gain advantages when they inspire ‘everyday innovation’ among employees. What are the conditions that foster everyday innovation and how companies can measure their progress toward creating these conditions?

Meet Linda
Linda works in a government office as a service agent assisting customers with a variety of forms and applications. The office is structured similar to a bank—customers wait in line until the next agent is available. A traditional pain point for customers is the length of the wait time for service; during peak times, the line stretches back as far as the front door. Sighing, eye-rolling, and head-shaking were common customer reactions. Despite this, Linda observed that many customers came to the window still not having completed all the materials necessary to finish their transaction.

In fact, Linda noticed that much of an agent’s time was actually spent helping customers fill out the forms at the service counter. One day Linda came to the office with a set of ‘customer checklist’ cards. As customers entered the office they were handed the appropriate checklist and asked to first check they had each of the necessary materials completed before standing on line. The implementation of this simple process reduced wait times significantly, as fewer and fewer customers presented the agents with incomplete materials. Shortly thereafter, Linda’s simple checklist procedure was implemented across government offices.

You could use a variety of ways to describe Linda. She wanted customers to be satisfied, she understood what was impacting the customer experience, and she went above and beyond the normal call of duty. Innovative? Absolutely.

The Holy Grail: Innovation
It’s hard to think of a quality more sought after today by companies than innovation. In fact, many companies are structured with resources invested in driving innovation. It is not uncommon to see job titles like ‘chief innovation officer,’ or ‘VP, strategic innovation.’ In addition, many companies outwardly promote their status as industry innovators. Company taglines, websites and vision statements make heavy use of the term. It used to be that you could have a great reputation if you were efficient, helpful and insightful. Today your corporate image, and financials, depends a lot on your capacity and reputation for innovation.

All of this stems from the reality that innovation brings with it significant competitive advantages. Companies known for innovation can more easily engage customers with their brand and they can more easily attract the most talented employees who want to work on the leading edge.

The Power of Thinking Small
Innovation is not the exclusive realm of companies seeking the next groundbreaking idea or disruptive technology. In fact, a number of business writers and researchers have emphasized the importance of encouraging small innovations. In writing for the Harvard Business Review, John Baldoni1 noted how taking pressure off employees to find the next big idea actually encourages the creativity that gives rise to smaller, incremental innovations.

As illustrated by Linda’s scenario, innovation need not change everything, only improve the customer experience—whether it is developing or modifying, a product, service or process. This effort creates a unique and distinctive customer benefit that allies the customer to the company. Office workers, customer services representatives, frontline managers and supervisors can all be innovative and create the financial benefits that spring from it.

In their comprehensive research on innovative working, Fiona Patterson and her associates2 illustrated the importance of establishing conditions that lead to everyday innovation. How can companies inspire innovation among employees, whether they are in customer service roles, marketing or product and service development? They must foster the conditions that inspire employees to create unique customer benefits. They also must measure their progress toward creating the conditions so that they can identify ways to reach these conditions effectively.

Creating the Conditions for Everyday Innovation

1. Autonomy: Adopting an Attitude of Latitude
A recent report by Mercer Consulting3 reinforces the importance of giving employees autonomy in the workplace. The report’s findings suggest that a key component to keeping employees engaged is to give them the flexibility to provide high quality products and services and sufficient autonomy to be effective. The report also noted,that compared to past survey results, employees’ feelings that they can act autonomously are on the decline in Canada.

Autonomy is critical to innovation. Why? When employees are given the freedom to act autonomously they take ownership of the work they do and take responsibility for finding ways to make things better for customers. If workplace actions are tightly controlled, employees don’t own their efforts. With no pride of ownership there is no motivation to create unique customer benefits.

A workplace culture that promotes autonomy also has a particularly powerful impact on customers. Research conducted by Sentis shows that autonomy gives rise to employee actions that signal to customers that the company has a genuine interest in creating a unique customer experience. These encounters create unique, indelible imprints that glue customer to company.
We found that when employees were given latitude in handling customer problems, they were more likely to continue to work on the customer’s behalf until a solution was found—as opposed to passing the customer off to another department. Moreover, customers could recall these service encounters with extraordinary detail even though many of these occurred years before.

2. Fostering a “Try It” Culture
“Make sure you generate a reasonable number of mistakes.”
- Fletcher Byrom’s Ninth Commandment

Mistakes are essential to growth in business and life. Some of the most influential management books ever written emphasize the central role that mistake-making has at companies that endure. Mistake-making is a sign that a company, and its people, are striving to push beyond their current boundaries.

In fact, how else can growth occur—both professionally or personally—if we do not stretch and try doing something differently?  In their landmark book, In Search of Excellence4, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman demonstrated how a ‘bias for action’ and risk-taking were key differentiators of excellent companies versus also-rans. In describing this distinctive orientation among excellent companies, Peters and Waterman noted, “They don’t try to hold everyone on so short a rein that they can’t be creative. They encourage practical risk taking and support good tries”.

Despite this advice from business leaders and successful entrepreneurs—and the fact that many of us would agree with it—our daily work lives tend to be focused on striving to avoid making mistakes. This is due in part to what psychologists have labeled loss aversion. Initially identified by Tvesky and Kahneman5, loss aversion is the tendency for people to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. We feel much more strongly about the prospect of losing $100 than do about the prospect of gaining $100 that we do not yet have.  This biases decision-making in a manner that, first and foremost, avoids losses; it also prevents “try-it” cultures from yielding their innovative potential.

3. Bringing the Customer Closer to the Employee
A number of recent studies have demonstrated the motivational benefits of bringing the customer experience directly to the employee—rather than have internal managers report on how customers use the company’s products or services.

Adam Grant has referred to this practice as ‘outsourcing inspiration’ and his recent Harvard Business article6 illustrates how and why it works.  Companies can inspire employees to create unique customer benefits by showing them how customers use and have been impacted by the company’s products. This can be done in a variety of ways including having customers come to the company’s offices to talk about their experiences. It can also be done by showing videos of customers describing their experiences or through written customer narrative.

The key is for the employee to experience the customer’s perspective in the customer’s own words, unfiltered by internal managers. Employees will often hold a degree of skepticism towards management’s perspective on the customer. Bringing the unfiltered experience of the customer up close is the employee’s most credible source of information. In this light, it can also become the source of an employee’s desire to innovate.

4. Measuring, Diagnosing, Improving
If you type ‘employee survey’ into your search engine you have quick access to hundreds of links to employee survey questionnaires. Many of these surveys attempt to measure the extent to which employees feel their organization supports innovation.

However, these surveys tend to use measures framed at a very broad level. For example, one survey seeks a scale measure of the following: “I am encouraged to be innovative or to take initiative in my work.” Another example: “I feel challenged in my current position”. The latter question suffers not only from being too broad but by being open to multiple interpretations.  Finding a framework that speaks to your organization’s innovative potential requires greater specificity.

Sentis’ approach is to develop customized measures that allow an organization to evaluate how it fares on those attributes of the workplace that promote an employee’s motivation to innovate. Our measures tap the employee’s perception of the organization’s support for autonomy, its encouragement of risk-taking, and the extent to which it connects the experience of the customer directly with the employee. This more targeted approach gives managers the tools to implement specific policies and practices that will sustain employees’ motivation to continually seek ways to create unique customer benefits.

The Everyday Opportunity
We are now (hopefully) emerging from difficult economic conditions in which the message from management has been: “We have to do more with less.” One of the consequences of such conditions is that employees are thrust into circumstances in which they have to find creative, innovative solutions to make customers happy at a time when there are fewer employees to serve them. This presents a timely opportunity for organizations to harness the initiative of employees that has carried them through tough times and to implement management practices that the motivation to innovate.

As the saying goes, “out of crisis, there is opportunity.”

Adam DiPaula, PhD (ad@sentisresearch.com) is one of Canada’s leading research professionals and serves as Managing Director at Sentis Market Research Inc. 

1.Baldoni, J. (2010). How to encourage small innovations. Harvard Business Review blog post. January, 29.
2.Patterson, F., Kerrin, M., Gatto-Roissard, G., Coan, P. (2009). Everyday innovation: How to enhance innovative working in employees and organizations. NESTA Research Report, December.
3.Mercer Consulting (2011). Inside employees’ minds: Navigating the new rules of engagement. Canada survey summary.
4.Peters, T., & Waterman, R. (1982). In search of excellence. Harper Collins: New York: NY.
5. Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47, 263-291
6.Grant, A. (2011). How customers can rally your troops. Harvard Business Review, June.

(PeopleTalk Spring 2013)

Joining the ranks of authenticity and transparency, crowdsourcing is quickly becoming everyone’s favorite buzzword. With more platforms continuing to seamlessly erode barriers between you and your communities, you should be using the crowd to your advantage.

Many talk, but few speak about, how to actually crowdsource projects effectively. The key is that it takes a certain nuance and subtle communication tactics in order to pull it off.

Along with the video above, we’ll outline below how you can embrace your inner Tom Sawyer to motivate your community to work for you. Citing examples of how HootSuite crowdsources everything from its name, to translations into 13 different languages, you’ll learn practical tips to put your community to work.

1) Identify a clear mandate and timeline
Never-ending projects lose momentum – we know this from experience with some of our language translations. To ensure your projects don’t fizzle out and lose steam, articulate precise timelines or targets, and uphold your deadlines at all costs (or at least communicate any changes).

Measuring is also important, so you’ll want to find a way to quantify your efforts and have check-ins in place to ensure quality and consistency.

2) Inspire and incentivize
Treat your volunteers like employees by allowing them the same accountabilities and processes as your local workers. You can accomplish this by sharing your vision and story to give them a glimpse into your world.

Let them bask in the glory of your successes, but also feel your pain and struggles to ensure they are emotionally invested. While you allow them the same benefits of employees in many respects, certainly the monetary value differs. Instead, incentivize with perks and hugs (virtual or physical).

You’ll also want to learn about your volunteers. Why are they participating? What drives them? What makes them tick?

Find the answers to these questions, then help them achieve their goals and you’ll build loyalty amongst your contributors.

3) Turn your community into stars
Cast the spotlight away from you and onto your star contributors. It goes without saying that you need to thank people for their work… but take this a step further and publicly thank them.

In the Internet age, social currency is paramount so give your contributors a shoutout on your company blog with links to their personal website or social profile(s). Also, share pictures so your audience can match a face to your description.

Take things a step further by becoming a part of their audience. Publicly Tweet them, offer a comment on their blog, and give them a LinkedIn Recommendation and enjoy the power of these micro-gestures.

Finally, complement any virtual currency with physical gifts: handwritten thank-you letters are a great personal gesture and custom swag packages go a long way as well.

4) Forward momentum, frequently shared
Crowdsourcing is interesting and interesting content is what resonates with your audience. Share regular updates on the progress of your crowdsourcing project via social channels to even set up an exclusive email newsletter for each project to keep the positive energy flowing with your updates. The effect is contagious and your collaborators will feed off the story.

Continually remind your audience why this project is important by communicating the macro-level vision and share how your communities’ efforts directly help your clients and stakeholders.

Finally, share any coverage liberally. Write news roundups of all your coverage from the giants (TechCrunch, Mashable, etc) right down to ‘Bob’s Social Sitcom Blog’ (sadly, this blog does not exist). Placing Bob’s blog right next to larger coverage is another powerful gesture and “Bob” will be ecstatic and more inclined to cover your news in the future.

5) Model behavior to motivate
Lead the way by showing your own contributions. Be translucent from the outset about your ambitions and goals with the project and how volunteers fit into these plans. This ensures you don’t manipulate or take advantage of your new friends.

Model your “keeners” as examples to motivate others. Ensure there is a system in place to reward contributors, for example: ‘level up’ with different badges, offer titles (we use Diplomats, Ambassadors, Envoys etc.) for different tiers of contribution which reflect your brand and story…think Cub Scouts!

Using these principles, HootSuite manages and executes the translation of HootSuite’s web-based dash and mobile apps into 13+ languages as 95 per cent of the HootSuite Translation Project is done by volunteers. All it takes is a bit of subtle psychology and nuanced communication, and you’ll embrace the power of the crowd.

Remember, be the busdriver: clearly outline where you are going, how and when you’ll get there, and take your friends with you on a majestic (and safe) journey.

Connor is HootSuite’s Community Manager of North America, West, regularly sharing HootSuite stories on the HootSuite Blog. When not building community, you’ll find him playing and following just about every sport, high fiving strangers while running, and drinking too much coffee.

This article was originally posted on the Hootsuite Blog.

BC’s Anti-Bullying legislation is not yet a year old and it has been the catalyst for opening up the dialogue around how to address mental health and safety issues in the workplace.  It is encouraging to see so much engagement from employers as well as public support from professional organizations. 

On May 6, 2013 Simon Evans, CEO of BC HRMA, announced that the association is supporting Partners for Mental Health and helping to launch Not Myself Today. The stories on the Not Myself Today website are touching, both in the honesty and despair of some of the writers. While some praised their supervisors for being supportive and understanding of their mental health issues, a number of them felt their supervisor or human resources department were ignorant and uncaring about their situations – particularly those which resulted in bullying or harassment.

Not Myself Today is an excellent website and hopefully it will prompt human resources professionals, managers and supervisors at all levels to ask what they need to know and do to better address mental health issues in their workplace.  To ensure your employees are telling success stories rather than discouraging tales there are a number of strategies to consider, the most important being training and support for respectful workplace behaviours.

How well are your managers and supervisors doing?

Are they equipped to deal empathetically and sensitively with mental health issues? Do they know how to manage and supervise – people, not just functions?  To be truly effective they need to be skilled at:

• showing a genuine interest in and developing a relationship with their employees;
• treating their employees with respect;
• demonstrating fairness and integrity;
• encouraging, motivating and providing constructive feedback on a regular basis;
• looking for opportunities to recognize their employees;
• listening to their employees;
• promoting team work;
• effectively addressing bullying and harassment; and
• asking for HR’s help when they don’t know how to handle an employee situation.

Or are they part of the problem?

We all know that some managers or supervisors get appointed to their roles because they were good functionally, or technically as employees.  However, high performing employees do not necessarily make great managers.  There is a different skill set required and if they have been promoted without learning how to lead and how to build effective relationships with their employees, problems inevitably arise.

The reality is that most organizations, and some of the best managers, will experience negative situations where mental health and safety issues of their employees have not been handled well.

The good news is that strong leadership can be developed with coaching, training, goal setting and by holding managers and supervisors accountable for effective people management. 

Managing with Care

In managing employees with mental health challenges, even more finesse is required.  Sensitivity, empathy and a trusting relationship between the manager/supervisor and the employees are key to successful outcomes.

Do your employees trust their supervisor enough to say “I’m not myself today.  I know you understand and will be patient with me.”? If not, it may be time to get expert advice, support and training that will better equip your organization with the knowledge and people practices that define respectful workplaces.

Cheryl Otto, B.A., LLB, is the Founder and CEO of Ounce of Prevention Solutions  Inc. (oopsolutions.com), a one-stop shop for all things Respectful Workplace. Cheryl has 17 years of legal experience in the area of workplace conflict resolution and assisting organizations in creating and maintaining respectful workplaces. Her specialties include: conflict management, workplace relationship coaching, communication skills, workplace assessments, performance management, mediation, facilitation, policy analysis, education, and investigations.

Roger Hardy is the founder and CEO of ClearlyContacts.ca, the world’s largest online retailer of contact lenses and eyeglasses. Hardy’s “never-say-die” attitude and uncanny problem solving skills have helped him become a proven developer of successful business strategies and have helped ClearlyContacts.ca become the largest Canadian online retailer today. Hardy has been honored with many awards over his years as Clearly Contacts’ leader, including Business in Vancouver’s Top Forty Under Forty in 2002, and The Pacific Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award (Business-to-Consumer) in 2006.

What inspired the original vision for Clearly Contacts and what was the key to creating the success it has become?

The original vision was really to serve customers better than they were being served. Going to an eye doctor or an eye clinic for contact lenses and eyeglasses is an expensive and cumbersome process. My idea was that there “ had to be a better way” and that’s what inspired me to build the original web site and start selling contact lenses, online. I think our original idea was a customer focused one, and anytime you start with ‘what does our customer want and need’ it leads to lasting success. Today we continue to focus on what customers want and try to give it to them faster, with a better experience and greater value than anyone else can. We’re constantly finding better ways to listen whether through direct customer calls, email feedback or social media. Listening and then working hard to deliver has really been our key to success.

You have taken culture to heart from the beginning with Clearly Contacts. What lies at the core of your culture and how does teambuilding differ today from when you began in 2002?

We really did take culture to heart early. I think of it as having been our competitive advantage for a long time, and hope that it still is.  At the core of our corporate culture are really our purpose and core values, and we use these as the foundation for all our hiring, and team building efforts. As a larger group today we try to ensure that our core values are still resonating with our team and also that the values are driving people to be engaged with our company on many different levels.

As Clearly Contacts continues to grow, what drives the success of your recruitment and onboarding practices?

Our success in recruitment is driven by constantly reminding ourselves of the basics—a focus on ensuring people who are joining our team share our values and can get excited about our purpose and mission statements. Recruitment and onboarding continue to be an evolving work in progress and as we grow we need to continue to learn and optimize the process to achieve better and better results.  But for us getting the basics right is so important.

What do you define as the area of greatest opportunity for HR professionals looking to make an impact on the bottom line?

There has never been a more critical time for HR professionals to be having an impact on organizations. Companies are moving faster and faster and time is critical. As we all know its people that build companies, and attracting and retaining the best people is also critical to our success. HR professionals are being asked to play a bigger and bigger roles in smart companies; they now have a seat at the table making key decisions with CEOs and Boards of businesses.

The best HR professionals are thinking strategically about where the company is going and what its going to need six–12 months out and they are working hard to fill those gaps internally and externally before the company hits them. The HR professionals that best understand the objectives of the CEO and Board can make contributions like never before. By having candidates and succession plans “ pre-loaded”, by the time the CEO is asking to fill a void – they already have a solution, which may have taken 6-9 months to provide.  This keeps the organization from missing a beat – which can mean life and death in the fast-paced world of quarterly expectations today.

Any final words of advice for HR professionals seeking to “Inspire, Influence, Innovate” in 2013?

HR today is THE critical role inside companies and organizations which can make the difference in today’s fast-growing companies and determine the success of tomorrow’s companies.  Smart boards and CEO s absolutely understand this and it is a very exciting time to be an HR professional.

The difference between good and great professionals will be the ability to predict and add value to our collective future. The people who get ahead of where the company is today and see where its going are the ones who are going to be adding the most value driving the organization forward.

It’s a time where I would be looking for a seat at “ the table” to take on more responsibility and participating in shaping the team.  I would be working hard to align the team with the corporate strategy and ensure that as the company grows I will “own”  any gaps in recruiting or succession and become the GO TO source for providing forward-looking solutions.

(PeopleTalk Spring 2013)

Building a career today is a multifaceted, dynamic goal. Gone are the days where you secured yourself an entry level position and expected to stay with that organization for the next 40 years. Today, we are building brands, investing in self-education, and building our future selves.

With so much to consider – education, experience, industry, location — the question becomes, where do I focus my energy? Here are five simple steps that will set off your success:

Step 1: Self-Educate
Above all else, you need to educate yourself. Self-education comes from seeking out knowledge and diverse experiences. There is so much free knowledge out there, you really have zero excuses. My personal favourites: iTunes U, TED, Twitter, and good ‘ol fashioned books.

Not sure where to start? Read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Diverse experiences are all around you; the essence is to get out of your comfort zone and shake things up. Do something that scares you. Try a new cuisine. Try a new activity or sport. Get out there and experience all the spice that life has to offer. Cliché, yes, but do it anyway.

Step 2: Whistle While You Work
First off, get a great attitude. Notice how I didn’t say, “have” a great attitude or “project” a great attitude. I’m implying that a positive attitude is available, you just have to choose it. Pause for a second and consider the truth in this — allow yourself to be influenced by the choice element.

Second, you need to work hard. In everything that you do, strive for excellence. Care about your customers and devote yourself to doing the best possible job for them. Always, always, ALWAYS do 1% more than what’s expected of you.

By coming into work each day with an unwavering positive attitude and the readiness to work extra hard, you will already have an edge. Do not (I repeat, do not) place conditions on these two pieces. Your attitude is who you are and your boss’ lousy attitude will not change it. Commit to yourself that you are unwilling to allow anyone (or anything) affect your commitment to having a great attitude and working hard.

Step 3: Brand Yourself
Deciding who you want to be is crucial. One way to start this conversation with yourself is to write down five adjectives that you think others would use to describe you and then five adjectives that you want them to use to describe you. It’s important to be honest and to tap into your emotional intelligence for the first list. Be honest: do others tend to roll their eyes when you speak up? Do they challenge all of your ideas? Take a step back and ask yourself why this is happening. Asking yourself, “what am I not doing right now that could change this situation?” might also give you a lead.

Next, you need to promote yourself. If you want your colleagues to think you’re enthusiastic and smart — get on the road and show ‘em. In fact, just get on the road.  I want you to do a roadshow. When you walk to the restroom make eye contact with those you pass and say hello. When you’re making lunch, ask a stranger in the lunchroom how their day is going. And remember — focus on them.

The number one rule in making people like you is to focus on their needs. Nobody wants to be interrupted over lunch with what’s going on with you. Lastly, don’t limit your interactions based on hierarchy. When the VP is making his/her coffee at the same time as you – chat them up. You could call this socializing, you could call this networking. Bottom line: the more people you meet, the more brand awareness you have. Perhaps we call it ‘Office Klout.’

The last piece in branding is to utilize social media. Once you’ve defined who you want to be and you are this person in real life – you need to support that brand online. Be strategic about the content that you put online and do your due diligence to ensure it is align with the message you are trying to project at work.

Step 4: Get Hurt
I know, I know – get hurt? What am I thinking? The next step is the toughest step of all, but by far the most important. Your precious, beautiful, pearl-like ego needs some hurt. Find someone you trust. Build a relationship. Then let this person give you a swift kick in the ass. More than once.

When I got my first leadership position, I got my first judo chop to my ego. I will never forget how much it hurt, but at the same time I will forever be indebted to my fearless, ass kicking coach.  I was 21, responsible to mentor and supervise a group of new employees and provide on the spot floor coaching. My manager at the time was also giving me extra responsibilities, above what my peers had and I thought I was doing a rock solid job.  I started noticing what I described at the time as jealousy towards me from my peer group and some resistance to my ideas. But – I was rocking it, so I ignored the cues.

For example, he told me how impatient I am, how I cut others off, don’t listen and so on — and how as a coach, how detrimental this is to my team. I remember leaving work that day, bruised, crying, furious at him. I went home and I cried my eyes out to my sister, I cursed him and swore he was completely wrong. My sister did something then that proved what a great mentor she is: she told me that I need to write a personal development plan. After my tears of anger dried, tears of embarrassment began, tears of loss pride. But my sister’s solution coaxed me on. If I returned with a plan, I was not weak – instead, I was fueled by a new challenge.

I want you to find a mentor, coach, leader — find someone that you respect (and admire) and seek out brutal truth feedback. Remember, step one is to self-educate and have diverse experiences. Being thrown off your horse and humbled is education; it is also a necessary experience. You have to want this. Since my first ego take down, I’ve been whipped into shape enough times to keep coming back for more. I can tell you that it hurts every time, but the feeling of standing yourself up again (with a plan!) is worth its weight in gold.

Step 5: Set Goals
The last step is a call to action. We won’t achieve a THING unless we decide we’re going to achieve it. Sit down, visualize your greatest wants, needs, desires – and write a plan for yourself.  Goals that we write down are 80 per cent more likely to be achieved. Fact.

If you’re not sure of what you want, consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and assess each level. Assess what is most important to you, what’s missing, and so on. An easy way to get your creativity flowing is to do a simple mind map.

Go through steps 1-5 and brainstorm – what triggers excitement, fear, and so on, and write you own personal development plan.

Writer, advocate, connector, collaborator – Gabrielle Garon is a HR people pro with one of the Pacific Northwest’s top web development firms, ImageX. By day she does what she does best: helps, coaches, and influences positive change. Gabrielle got into HR because she really liked helping others and soon found an overwhelming curiosity for behaviour, motivation, and how it all intersects with business. Connect with Gabrielle: gabriellegaron.wordpress.com or @GabrielleGaron

A key skill relevant to leaders at all levels is the ability to positively influence people in such a way that others follow and act willingly —as opposed to complying because of the authority factor. Then there are those roles where leaders must “manage” more indirectly.  In many cases, as with HR, finance and marketing, where direct report structures differ, this might even be the primary way things get done.

After all, whether or not you are in sales directly, you are selling ideas, opinions and insights daily.

Both an art and a key business asset, influence is essential in all aspects of life, and constantly at play in the workplace.  Let’s look at some of the most important things you can do to anchor this core skill set to your business advantage.

1. Understand resistance to change

Everyone has a different tolerance for change.  That said, when people resist ideas, the reason is typically made apparent by asking the following three questions:

• Is the problem that you are trying to solve clear to the other party—along with the full implications of inaction?
• Have you been clear about what you want and the specific benefits of doing things the way you are suggesting?
• How much sacrifice or risk taking are you expecting from the other party and what can you do to minimize it or alleviate their concerns?
• When attempting to influence, consider what you might do in each of these three areas.

2. Adapt to social styles

Everyone has a different way of going about the things they do. It is easy to forget that the other party might be hearing something completely different than you think you have communicated. The reason for this again stems from what are essentially four primary social styles:

• Driver: Direct, results-orientated
• Expressive: Outgoing, creative, social
• Amiable: Dependable, easygoing, sensitive
• Analytical: Systematic, accurate, structured, logical

Bearing these four social archetypes in mind, how might we better understand our differences in order to find more common ground.

Step 1 is to understand your own biases and to learn how to moderate them.

For example, drivers often have to focus on their listening skills. Expressives may need to focus on providing rationale and embracing the thinking of more logical people, particularly when they see holes in an argument. Amiables may need to speak up and let their thoughts be known and analyticals may need to focus on the personal touch when seeking to grow their ability to influence.

Step 2 is to understand and adapt to the dominant style of the person you are attempting to influence.
Drivers become quickly frustrated with long-windedness or poorly constructed arguments and are best influenced through direct, brief, results-orientated discussions.

• Expressives place a high value on social contact and status. They are best influenced by including them in decision-making while dealing with feelings and showing respect for their own ideas and past actions.
• Amiables place a high value on harmony and avoiding personal risk. When influencing an Amiable, don’t go for the quick “yes”. Show patience, ask for their feelings and show how you plan to manage impacts on people.
• Analyticals become frustrated with ideas that are not thought through properly. When attempting to influence Analyticals, provide hard evidence, do not overstate the benefits and invite their critique – it may just save you!

3. Develop your personal power

There are two types of power in business—positional and personal. While the use of positional power is sometimes necessary, an overuse of it will quickly erode one’s personal power, leading to a dictatorial style of leadership.

Personal  power can be developed by focusing in two areas:

• Relationships: People tend to have an easier time adopting ideas of people they like. So look for ways to build relationships at every turn. Attend to the little things, apologize to people, don’t forget what you have promised and recognize others for what they do and who they are.
• Expertise: Before people will adopt your ideas, they need to believe that you are credible. So do your homework, get the facts, talk to the experts and do whatever you can to learn about all parts of the organization, not just your own.

4. Pass the microphone

We are born with one mouth and two ears – a good salesperson uses them proportionately. If you are do all the talking, do not be surprised if people do not adopt your ideas. So what to do?

• Use active listening skills. Don’t assume that you know where people are coming from – make it your job to find out and show them explicitly that you understand them (even if you do not agree), which leads to the next point…
• Speak to what you hear. Persuasion typically requires a number of “kicks at the can”, and each kick needs to be better aimed than the one preceding. You do this by adapting your pitch according to what you hear. For example, if they are worried about the investment required, then show how it will lead to a greater return, or find a way that costs less.

5. Appeal to emotion

Logical types often forget that influencing requires more than just a good argument.  You need to appeal to a person’s emotions when attempting to influence them. This is not to endorse a strictly emotional appeal, but to encourage a balanced approach that brings genuine connectivity to the table.

• Be authentic: Speak from your heart (don’t read from a script) and don’t hide your agenda (they will “smell” this).
• Use effective body language: Effective eye contact, appropriate facial expressions, posture and even dress can convey more than you think.
• Share stories: Facts and figures aside, stories are what people remember most and create a closer connection in any conversation—especially those in which you are seeking to build support. Avoid relying on generalizations such “customers are complaining” or “employees are unhappy” and tell a real story with real characters to build real support.

6. Stress benefits over features

Go beyond explaining the ‘what’ of your wants and focus on the ‘why’—and the benefits. The language you use is key to your results.
Don’t re-iterate the features and expect people to change their opinion. Instead,  keep speaking to “why is that important?” and the core benefits revealed will prove more persuasive.
Be sure to convey benefits that are meaningful to the other party and how your idea will create more value than it costs.
If your idea links to a key organizational strategy (for example “improving customer service”), then make the link explicit—don’t assume others will make the link.

7. Synthesize, synthesize, synthesize

While it is a greater challenge to present a complex idea in a simple fashion it is always worth the effort.  Taking the time to synthesize your bigger picture is what it takes to get others to listen. We have all sat down to a meeting where a senior executive began with something along the lines of, “I have one hour and 60 slides so let’s get started.” Two hours later…had your attention waned?  Remember to:

• Consider your audience. For example, your staff will probably appreciate details, but your executive team may not.
• Use graphs and pictures wherever possible to illustrate your key messages.
• Avoid wordy slides as this is a recipe for too much talking and poor presentations.

8. Structure your points appropriately

It is important to create a good flow when pitching ideas to others in order to set the scene for maximum receptivity. Points to consider for structuring your pitch:

• Start with something that catches their attention – something you saw or heard.
• Before stating what you want, explain the problem.
• Only after explaining the problem, tell them what you are suggesting. (This order is important, because once people begin to argue your chances of persuading them diminish rapidly. Moreover, they are more likely to argue if they do not understand the problem you are trying to solve).
• Be sure to explain the benefits of what you are proposing.
• Be proactive about communicating the possible downsides of what you are proposing, and what you think can be done to mitigate them. If you don’t do this, don’t be surprised if the other side starts to pick your idea apart for you.
• If you want people do something differently, be explicit and don’t assume that people will magically know what you expected of them.

9.  Persist
Persuasion is not a one-shot effort. Be prepared to pitch the same idea on multiple occasions using a variety of means, settings, media and with multiple improvements based on what you hear each time.

And remember…
You may not think of yourself as a salesperson. However, if your role is to influence others in a significant way you need to employ many of the same skills. It is not complicated, but takes mindfulness and careful thought, particularly when under stress and pressure.  This approach can greatly increase the odds of getting your good ideas adopted.

Russel Horwitz is a principal with Kwela Leadership and Talent Management (leadership-vancouver.ca). His focus areas include leadership development, training and professional coaching.

(PeopleTalk Spring 2013)

Your employees are the ones who help reach the collective goals of the organisation. Hence it is very important to keep their morale up so they can work towards achieving better results.

Sometimes the plain and simple things in life are the most important ones. It’s the same situation for the workplace. Simple and well thought-out plans make all the difference to lightening-up staff morale.

Here are 10 steps that explain how any organisation can spend a few minutes and improve their staff morale at the workplace.

1. To reduce the stress level of employees, get rid of equipment that doesn’t work well such as computers, photocopier, fax machine etc and replace it. Make sure the supplies are always enough and the kitchen is stocked with provisions.

2. Allow them to work flexible hours. Employees also have personal commitments as well. Today, best practice workplaces are offering flexitime, part-time positions and work from home options more increasingly.

3. Give importance to the ideas and advice of your employees. Encourage them to speak up on different issues that relate to the organisation or themselves. Implement their ideas if practical and let people know of their contribution.

4. You can hold bake-offs and share morning tea or coffee because mornings are a great time to share ideas. Everybody can bring in some sort of baking confectionary. This can also raise some funds for charities that are widely supported by the employees.

5. A management expert believes that short messages should be delivered in person. Today, we live in an era where 40 percent of emails are not given any value. It means that rather than emailing the person who sits two floors down, just go and talk to him/her directly; it strengthens the relationship.

6. Offer your employees to sit with you for a day even if you are meeting someone. This will boost the morale of the employees up to a great extent and a give them lots of useful insight too.

7. Offer them advice on how they strive harder to make the best of their careers. Reimburse them for continuing education courses, professional seminars and lectures.

8. You can run contests and awards schemes. You can set a prize for something as simple as the best customer feedback received during the month.

9. Maintain a specific budget for entertainment. Arrange a team to decide the fair allocation of the budget for each quarter.

10. Celebrate the birthdays of your employees. It will not cost you to email your wishes. Every employee has a birthday so eventually no one is left out.

This blog was originally posted on Jostle.me.

“Invest in coachable hires,” advises Piasecki, author of Doing More with Teams: The New Way to Winning. “Many companies make the mistake of hiring high performers who are talented but perhaps not team-oriented and loyal. What they fail to realize is that even the most brilliant individual is less powerful than a cohesive, well-orchestrated team. Far less powerful, in fact.”

As Piasecki’s book explains, the near future will be all about innovation for sustainable value creation, led by teams. The days when a larger-than-life personality is allowed to steamroll over the rest of the company are over. This destroys morale, which destroys results.

Companies can’t afford to make bad hires. They have to be able to distinguish team-minded individuals in the interview process. Piasecki offers the following hints on the qualities you should look for:

Conduct interviews in a team of four or five leaders.
This will replicate the dynamics of the team setting the new employee will be working in, explains Piasecki. “Good team players tend to do well in settings of four or five people asking an avalanche of questions,” he observes.

Look for an intrinsic ability to “bond” with interview team members.
Even more important than dress, training, or résumé, says Piasecki, is the candidate’s ability to “bond” instantly to at least three to five members in the interview team. This doesn’t merely mean an affinity for small talk or schmoozing. The bond we’re discussing here must translate to action in a “reliable, sustained way” with those people—and it will reveal itself in the specific points the candidate makes.

They demonstrate a desire to work with you for a long time.
As a player in the global economy, your quest is to generate revenue through respect, relationships, and long service. That kind of well-paid loyalty requires a team player, says Piasecki. You are always looking for a longer term player, someone who is coachable in a matter of seasons, not just individual project events.

“Fierce individualists tend to ‘make their mark,’ then move on,” he explains. “But in our swift and severe world, we need people who have a deep craving for the kind of team connections that grow stronger over the years.”

Good team players look for feedback.
In fact, they long for it. It’s not that they want the praise, but that they want to get a feel for the path of improvement available to them. They will expect it to be a two-way conversation, whereby you are able to interact with their responses, not just a Q & A session. The way they behave in the interview will mirror the way they’ll behave on the job.

“You may never have a candidate who does everything on this list ‘right,’ or answers every question the exact way you want it answered,” Piasecki says. “But if you approach your interview with an awareness for a teamwork attitude, you probably won’t go wrong.”

Dr. Bruce Piasecki is the author of Doing More with Teams: The New Way to Winning and president and founder of AHC Group, Inc., a management consulting firm specializing in energy, materials, and environmental corporate matters, whose clients range from Suncor Energy, Hess, FMC, the Warren Buffett firm Shaw Industries, Toyota, and other global companies in his Corporate Affiliates training workshops. www.brucepiasecki.com

Starting this fall, CMABC and ICABC will be jointly offering the CPA Program with the first graduates of the CPA Program expected by Fall 2015.

With more than 34,000 members and students in BC, CPABC will foster the growth and evolution of the accounting profession, while also providing the expertise to help businesses in every sector of the economy.

Together, all three accounting designations will work with the provincial government to enact CPA legislation, legally merge, and establish CPABC, which will be one of the largest professional organizations in the province. Until such time as legislative changes are enacted, CA, CGA, and CMA members will maintain their current designation, and the ICABC, CGA-BC, and CMABC will continue their existing mandates of self-regulation, education, and advocacy.

Currently, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia is the training, governing and regulatory body of B.C.’s 11,000 members and just over 1,800 CA students. The Certified Management Accountants Society of British Columbia represents over 4,000 members and 1,000 CMA students and candidates. The Certified General Accountants Association of British Columbia represents almost 11,000 CGAs and nearly 5,000 CGA students. The three bodies protect public interest through rigorous educational and certification programs to uphold the highest professional standards and ethics.

CPAs in British Columbia will serve the public interest across all sectors of the economy with integrity, sound ethical practices, disciplined regulation and proven strategic management and financial expertise. Accounting bodies representing 85 per cent of Canada’s professional accountants are committed to unification or have already merged under the CPA banner.

It is common to find articles on how to be more creative. We all know organizations should innovate. We all like the idea of being more creative. However the failing of these articles is that they presume the shortfall in innovation is because individuals do not think outside the box. The real problem is not the people, it is that organizations are designed to supress creativity.

You probably already had a gut feeling that something was wrong with the advice on how to be creative. One expert suggests that to be creative you should get out of your comfort zone. For example, do something unusual like asking to read a poem over the loudspeaker at the grocery store. Another suggests trying to design a 27th letter for the English alphabet. While we can understand the motivation for these exercises, it is hard to imagine them changing what you do at work. They are out of place in the corporate world.

Why Organizations Do Not Want Creativity
Organizations strive to act in a machine-like way. They want to efficiently do the same thing over and over. They want all the parts to work smoothly together. For machine-like predictability, you generally do not want individuals running around being creative. Organizations are quite right to, in many parts of the operation, encourage people to be predictable, follow the rules, and not innovate.

The other reason not to innovate is that it can be risky. If you are preparing a marketing brochure you can do something reasonably standard and know that it will be ‘good enough’. You might try to be creative and come up with a very different kind of brochure. It might be great, but it also might be a disaster that loses customers. Often the possible upside of a great brochure does not compensate for the risky downside of a lousy brochure. Many times, safe is good.

If the organization is designed to be uncreative and then we should be careful about encouraging individual creativity.

Where Creative Solutions Come From
Of course, organizations do need to innovate. However, I would shift the tone away from “individuals having creative ideas” to “teams finding excellent solutions to business problems”. The original Swiss Army Knife was a creative product; however, its creation was driven by an attempt to solve the problem of sometimes needing a small set of tools and not wanting to walk around the forest carrying a tool box. It did not take creativity exercises to shake an employee out of the rut so that he or she could invent the Swiss Army Knife. It took applied intelligence and a lot of tinkering.

Sometimes innovation is not so much creating as noticing. For example, IKEA’s big creative idea was having customers assemble furniture themselves. This got started when an IKEA worker had to take the legs off a table to get it into his car and realized that it made no sense to put them on in the first place. It was not a particularly creative thought: he had to get the table in the car and had to take the legs off. Obviously many customers faced a similar situation. The big challenge is not the idea, it is having an organization that can notice good ideas and act on them.

Creativity is normal, it is all about problem solving, and as the IKEA case shows, important innovations can come from relatively straightforward solutions. We will not find the solution to creativity by shaking up individual thinking. We will find the solution in creating organizations that pursue new solutions without disrupting their machine-like efficiency.

Creating innovative organizations
The first requirement for innovation is for employees to have enough time in their work lives to solve problems. Imagine that you know it would be more efficient to use Word’s mail merge function than doing the letters one by one but you are in a mad rush. Rather than learn mail merge you will do the expedient thing and print the letters one by one. Employees who are pressured this way do not have time to find fresh solutions. Most of your employees can be rushed most of the time; however, if you want creative solutions you need to create space for them to relax, think and try things.

The second requirement for innovation is that managers have to create space for experiments. A radically different kind of brochure may or may not be a good marketing tool. The organizational issue is to find a way to come up with new ideas and try them out on a small scale. A marketing department may spend 95 per cent of its time cranking out standard ‘good enough’ work, but it needs that 5 per cent to take creative new approaches and test them out; treating them as experiments to be learned from, not tests of success or failure.

The third requirement comes at the level of budgeting and resource allocation. For a business as a whole, the established lines of business always have more weight than new products and so innovative new areas of business can be starved for cash and talent. IBM realized that in their resource allocation processes they needed to look at new areas not as “small parts of the business” but “the next billion dollar business”. In effect they were making space in the corporation’s time to relax, think and try things.

The last requirement is a culture that values improvement along with efficiency. The amazing thing at IKEA is not that someone had the idea of taking the legs off a table; it is that the organization noticed and was willing to invest resources to build on the idea. Clearly they had the mindset to appreciate innovation and enough “space” to invest in figuring out how to build on a fresh idea.

The recurrent theme is that individuals, departments and organizations need to create protected spaces where problem solving can occur. There are many people in any organization who already have the skills to be creative. What they do not have is the time or the protected environment that can build on their tinkering. The solution to innovation is in how the company organizes itself, not it training people to think outside the box.

David Creelman is CEO of Creelman Research, providing writing, research and speaking on human-capital management. He also leads a club of practitioners implementing evidence-based management. He works with a variety of academics, think tanks, consultancies and HR vendors in Canada, the U.S., Japan, Europe and China. Mr. Creelman can be reached at dcreelman@creelmanresearch.com.