6 ways founders can empower their teams to innovate autonomously
For startups, founder dependency is often not even an issue, rather the reality is that a limited number of employees are working to get the business off the ground. However, maintaining such practices after a business has grown in size can be particularly detrimental to its success, scalability, and longevity. Reliance on founders creates a single point of failure and makes it difficult for businesses to adapt to industry trends by making quick decisions. For these reasons and many more, it’s important to shift the focus away from the founders and start sharing responsibility with the rest of your employees. This article explores six effective strategies for fostering innovation beyond leadership by empowering employees at all levels to take ownership of their work.
Accelerate innovation beyond leadership in six steps
Develop psychological safety
Perhaps the most important element in driving innovation and initiative within an organization is promoting psychological safety among employees. If your employees fear being criticized or punished every time they make a mistake, you can’t expect them to take ownership of their work or try new ideas and approaches. Experimentation and change often come from failure, so employees need to be given a safe space to try new things. Start by practicing honesty and humility, and share with your employees your past failures and how they contributed to future success. We then encourage them to challenge established processes and workflows and propose innovative solutions that can have a significant impact on the organization.
Creating clear business processes
Innovation is always a goal for organizations, but first you need to create the foundation on which to build your organization. By standardizing processes and workflows, we break dependence on founders and foster innovation at all levels. Even if employees know where to get information about a particular process, they won’t immediately rush to the founder for guidance. Instead, you are encouraged to actively search for information and take responsibility for completing tasks independently. You can also give structure to innovation by incorporating experimentation and brainstorming into your employees’ daily work. This can be achieved by establishing regular cross-functional meetings for the exchange and collaboration of ideas, and by introducing rapid experimentation cycles that provide employees with a clear framework to test new ideas quickly and effectively.
Encourage problem solving instead of completing tasks
In founder-dependent organizations, it is common for employees to receive tasks to complete rather than problems to solve. This means that the founders have already analyzed the situation and are asking their employees to take the necessary steps to address the problem. What is missing from this dialogue is a clear explanation of the thought process behind the task and how it is expected to impact the problem. An even better approach than simply explaining the problem to your employees is to present it to them and encourage them to suggest and test their own solutions. Then, by discussing the results together, you can hone critical thinking and problem-solving skills rather than giving your employees solutions. Ultimately, this method helps employees become more independent and better able to solve problems without the founder’s assistance.
Recognize and reward innovation
Recognition plays a critical role in driving innovation beyond leadership, giving employees the motivation they need to actively engage in projects rather than passively following instructions. To encourage your employees to continually improve and innovate, you need to reward employees for their initiative. For example, you can publicly recognize and reward employees who participate in pilot programs or cross-functional collaborative projects. Additionally, incorporate achievements in creativity, problem-solving, and innovation into performance reviews to show employees that their efforts are noticed and valued. If this recognition also leads to better career advancement opportunities, taking initiative will become a common practice for more employees.
Investing in leadership development
What better way to drive innovation beyond the founders than by investing in the training and development of your employees and middle management? Give your employees access to training courses, mentorship programs, seminars, and workshops that build their confidence and knowledge and support them to self-motivate and drive projects to success. Additionally, this approach helps create a succession pipeline of capable leaders who don’t have to rely on the founders for every issue or question. As a result, founders can gradually remove their input from all meetings, tasks, and projects, allowing the organization to continue operating uninterrupted in their absence.
Give employees the space to take initiative and drive innovation
When it comes to gradual regression, founders interested in fostering innovation need to understand that they cannot be an integral part of the organization. While their experience and knowledge is valuable, it is essential that other employees “come to light” to prove they can also have a meaningful impact. To achieve that, founders need to take a series of steps, starting with reducing their involvement in day-to-day business decisions. This allows other employees to take on more responsibilities. It is important to do this slowly and gradually increase the difficulty and importance of the tasks being handed over. Founders can also enable leaders and managers to host important meetings, increasing their confidence. This change will eventually spread to more projects and processes, empowering employees at all levels to drive innovation independently.
conclusion
Driving agility and innovation is essential for companies that want to remain relevant even as technology and their respective industries continue to advance. However, this cannot be achieved by humans alone. It is essential for organizations to foster innovation across leadership, share responsibility, and give employees enough trust to have the freedom to lead without fear of consequences. This can be achieved by promoting psychological safety, leadership development, establishing clear workflows, rewarding innovation, and more. In this way, founders can successfully transition their organizations from founder-centric organizations to resilient and scalable enterprises.
