Innovation Workshop - How To Easily Avoid Common Issues When Innovating
Your team has some big challenges and it’s time to use an innovation workshop to come up with new ideas. But you worry about the challenges that can occur during the workshop. People don’t buy into the process, they don’t share ideas, or they even start arguing with one another. Leaving your team feeling more frustrated and disconnected than before.
Fortunately, the innovation workshop doesn’t have to be like that. It can be a great way to bring a team together, build comradery and create incredible solutions to your biggest challenges.
We’ve been working with teams for over ten years. Helping them come together in a way that is safe, collaborative, and productive.
In this post, we will share with you common challenges you can avoid when going through a workshop on innovation.
Innovation Workshop - How to Easily Avoid Common Issues When Innovation
Challenges in an innovation workshop
Fear of failure
Most people have a fear of failing. But what makes people so afraid? It's often the negative consequences associated with failure. People are used to bad things happening to those who fail. One of the biggest worries people have with failure at work is the uncertainty of keeping their job.
Those negative consequences prevent people from taking risks or trying something new. But we can create an environment where we look at failure in a whole new light. We shift the culture of our workshops to one of learning. We talk about that in another post.
Fear of judgment
It’s natural to worry about what other people think. When trying something new in front of others, people think, “I don’t want to look dumb”. This type of thought is common. It's a good indicator that people are lacking psychological safety.
Psychological safety is the belief one will not be judged or experience negative consequences for speaking up or making mistakes. Throughout the innovation workshop exercises, there are a variety of ways you can remove judgment. You can learn more about that here.
Fear of the unknown
Like we said before, innovation can feel very abstract, and in some ways it is. Part of the process of the workshop on innovation is creativity, which is not always linear. It can be especially scary when people have not gone through the process before. People are not sure what to expect, how much time it will take, what’s expected of them, how other people will react, and so on.
When there is a lack of clarity, people can make up all sorts of stories about what is happening. We showcase a clear process in our Free Guide. This will help you and your team gain more clarity about what to expect from the process of innovation.
Fear of getting started
When you read about innovation, there are so many different innovation workshop exercises to do. So one big question is, where do we start?
Well, it depends on several factors. Such as, what do you know, what don’t you know, and where do you want to go.
If you are certain of the problem, then you don’t have to go learn what the problem is. But if you are uncertain about it and have a few hunches, then we will need to do a little digging.
Our free guide shares with you our process of innovation. This will help you have a better understanding of where to start and where to go.
Lack of time
Solving a big problem can feel like a lot. There can be an emotional block that gets in our way. Then we start thinking about how much time it will take to work on this big challenge. Having negative feelings about something and thinking about how much time it will take is a deadly combination to not get things started. It causes people to put their heads in the sand and avoid the problem.
The process of innovation can take a bit of time. But oftentimes that investment of time is quite small compared to the consequences of not solving the big problem. How important is it to you, your team, your company, and your customers to solve the big problem? If you don't solve this problem, what will the consequences be?
We don't recommend using our process of innovation for small, simple issues. You can use simple innovation workshop exercises for those. But if you are dealing with a big issue that could lead to even bigger problems down the road, then our process of innovation will help you. Issues like high turnover rate, loss of revenue, dissatisfied customers and even getting close to shutting down.
We see this with a variety of organizations, from nonprofits to tech companies. Blockbuster is a prime example. They didn’t innovate and now they are an example of what not to do.
Innovation doesn’t have to take as long as people think. When going through our process, we make sure it’s super productive. No more boring meetings where people talk all day and nothing gets done. We make sure each moment has clear outcomes that build off of one another.
Lack of money
It is often believed the bigger the problem, the more money it will take to solve it. But that is often not the case.
We believe it's not about a lack of resources, but a lack of resourcefulness that can really hurt organizations and businesses.
We don’t want you and your team to spend a lot of money on something that may work. It's about using cheap and quick tests to build confidence for the right solution. You want to have a good sense that something will work before you commit major resources to it.
Conclusion
Recognizing and mitigating these challenges will help your team be collaborative, creative, and productive during the innovation workshop. Allowing you to feel less stressed and become more excited about what you and your team will create during the workshop on innovation.
If you are looking for more help in leading an innovation workshop, we are here to be your guide. Go ahead and click the button below to find out how we can support you and your team’s innovation!