Thursday, October 31, 2013

Building a Postive Work Culture that Encourages Innovation

So, let us discuss what can a supervisor or manager do to facilitate the establishment of a positive work culture that promotes collaboration, innovation, and risk taking by employees to maximize their productivity? Did you hear about Terry Jones, the founder of Travelocity.com, keynote address last month at an annual meeting of corporate executives? His presentation focused on how to create a work culture that generates enthusiasm for innovation. Summarized below are key points he imparted to his audience. See which ones you can institute as a line manager in your work unit: 1) Don’t be afraid to fail. “If you don’t fail, you’re not having enough at bats.” 2) “Kill the project, not the person” if an idea doesn’t work. 3) Study your failures like football teams review tapes of unsuccessful plays. 4) Don’t dismiss out of hand ideas of line staff and lower-level employees. This is where many great ideas originate. 5) Surround yourself with diverse talents that can synergize. Source: University of Texas, Press Release http://bitly.com/terry-jones-1017 plays.