Black woman innovator – thegrio.com
Happy Monday! Yes it is Monday (just in case all the nerves in your body haven’t signaled it to you yet!)
As we’re starting a new week, all groggy from the week-end, we tend to drift back into old routines and work habits. And as we are bound to find out, old routines do not exactly produce new results, especially not at work.
While many of us nurture a creative, entrepreneurial mindset, we tend to leave it in the back of our minds when we come to work. Unless we are in creative fields, and even then, innovation tends to take a back seat in favor of more conventional, template-based work outputs. And we wonder why so many of us are bored silly at work…
Introducing innovative change at work isn’t easy, some will argue. Try to change the status quo? Impossible!, others will retort. While there certainly are rather strong barriers to corporate change and innovative solutions’ implementation, there is an even greater need to work better and smarter. So how does one bring innovation to work:
1. Identify a need! Wherever there’s a need, there’s at least one opportunity to bring about innovation. Are your policies and procedures in need of serious updating? Is the system constantly spewing out out of date data? Is the process too manual and inefficient? Look around you and identify factors that stand in the way of more effective and efficient work, and try to address these!
2. Think outside the box! In the era of templates, politically correct phrases and cookie-cutter mentalities, original thinking is in high demand, especially at work! Add value by bringing new solutions to old problems. Instead of continually re-inventing the wheel and perpetuating lasting inefficiencies, find adaptable remedies to everyday problems. From creating a database to maintain file records, to automating a cumbersome manual process, look at your work with fresh eyes and use the tools at your disposal to build innovative systems!
3. Offer a solution! People love solutions, especially those that can make their lives easier! So if you’ve noticed inefficiencies in the process and have been thinking of ways to work around them for more effective results, speak up! Approach it as a suggestion rather than an imposition, and offer to help improve the process!
Are you bringing innovation to work?
The Corporate Sister.
