Thriving in the business world means that change has to be constant. To build a truly innovative culture, businesses must invest in a diverse employee base. This combination of new perspectives is not only a great way to boost equality in your organization, but these varying perspectives can lead to great growth.
Culture Is Key
It’s said that if the only tool in your kit is a hammer, the entire world will start to look like a nail. Building innovation into your organization means that you will need to hire both for skill and education as well as perspective.
Of course, change can be challenging for some. The human brain is wired to build habits for the sake of efficiency, and asking the brain to change and accept new viewpoints can be worrisome to some employees. This is where diverse leadership is critical.
Innovative Thinking Is Risky
New perspectives come from building diversity in the workplace, and it’s entirely possible that some new ideas may fail. In fact, fast failure is necessary to bring new ideas to the forefront.
A business leader that embraces and welcomes change knows that not every idea will clear all the hurdles. When building a diverse workforce, leaders can and should offer recognition for innovation on projects or processes that don’t reach a successful launch. The things learned from a fast and fully supported failure can be put to use in the future, but your workforce will not risk failure if they see others punished for it.
Diverse Growth Requires Inclusion
As you work to build a diverse and inclusive workforce, it’s critical that you as a leader foster inclusion. When considering how to embrace diversity, it’s important to consider the source of that difference.
Diverse and innovative thinking can come from
- Inherent traits, or those you were born with, and
- Acquired traits, such as education and experience
No tree grows into a telephone pole straight up from the root. There are always going to be branchings and new growth. By investing in a diverse and innovative workforce, you get more branches and a bigger, healthier business.
Celebrate the Wins
As your workforce diversifies, your organization will build better problem-solving skills. Ideas that fill voids and solve problems are often worthy of patents. Once the patent process is underway, celebrate it!
Each step of the patent process requires expertise and no small amount of legwork. When selecting patent awards, consider keeping those doing the application work for special consideration.
The payout for putting together a patent application takes a great deal of time. However, capturing this innovation will greatly benefit your business, get your name out there, and attract both more business and employees with more excellent skill and diversity. The team that keeps your patent applications flowing needs to be in the loop for announcements, patent plaques, and the celebrations once the patent has been awarded.
Supportive Leadership
The people leading the charge of your company’s growth obviously know their jobs and their industry. However, new ideas are very hard to come by without new perspectives. Some of your new employees may desire changes that you’ve never considered, such as the chance to:
- Telecommute
- Compress their workweek or work alternate days
- Job share, or
- Modify start and end times of their day
The link between innovation and diversity, particularly among senior leadership, has been shown to increase profits and drive market share. In fact, executive teams with a more diverse make-up in terms of gender, ethnicity, and culture showed higher than average profits at a rate from 21% to 35%.
Change Promotes Growth
Without flexibility and growth, your organization can’t expand and move forward. Expanding your business footprint will require new ways of problem-solving, and inviting in new perspectives is a simple way to implement those necessary changes. By building a diverse workforce, celebrating new ideas even if they fail, and serving as both a safety net and cheerleader is a great way to make sure that your business continues to thrive.
Final Thoughts
We’re in the business of recognition. Documenting and promoting your success is our job, and we’re excited to help you celebrate the innovative thinking that will expand your business now and in the future. Contact us for a conversation on how best to display the hard work of everyone on your team.
