What you need to know to become an innovation hero

Reality
Building deeply innovative organizations must replace the more simplistic view of creating organizations that are technically innovative, but perpetuate a toxic and destructive corporate culture. Too often, this is ignored until there are legal, financial, or public relations consequences at hand. As a result, brand risk management innovation, in most companies, has yet to expand beyond this limited framework to assess and address toxic and destructive issues. Brand risk management is still viewed primarily through the lens of risk aversion and exposure to legal liability, and innovation is primarily understood through the lens of technological innovations. This is how obvious blind spots remain present in the cultural mindset and become institutionalized. Alternatively, those who accept the importance of diversity inclusion in fostering innovative organizational cultures reap its rewards.

  • 85% of CEOs whose organizations have lived through the diversity and inclusion strategy say it has improved performance.
  • Highly inclusive organizations rate themselves 170% better on innovation
  • Improving organizational cultures means less employee absenteeism
  • These organizations also have higher employee retention
  • Intentionally encouraging inclusion makes companies 45% more likely to increase their market share.

Step Up: Obstacles and Challenges

Innovation requires the ability to see things in unexpected ways. Bringing together unique perspectives from different backgrounds is often the catalyst for forward-thinking solutions, and this is where inclusion of diversity is required. Furthermore, research shows that innovation requires an environment in which all ideas can be considered regardless of their source. Opposition issues typically manifest as lawsuits and public shaming on social media after people within an organization act on their own personal biases. Despite having policies that denounce discrimination and bias, companies like Hilton, Starbucks and Toyota have paid a lot this year…both in terms of real dollars and in lost social capital that brands had built up decades earlier. At the same time, even some of the tech industry’s movers and shakers have been dethroned by reports and allegations of sexual misconduct and discrimination.

So why do we see this over and over again in companies that have policies that promote inclusion and respect?
Because the people within your organization, the ones who literally define what the organization is in real terms, have been unable (in far too many cases) to identify their personal bias and choose a better course of action to experience personal growth transformation.

What we have had are corporate cultures shaped by societies that are still struggling with legacies of oppression and exclusion.

Cost of the status quo on innovation
Because business decisions are driven, in many cases, primarily by profitability and risk aversion. This is part of the flaw in that brand risk management approach and a reason why innovation is so necessary sooner rather than later.

There was an experiment where a resume with a black-sounding name received half as many callbacks as the same resume with a white-sounding name, even when sent to corporations with a strong reputation for diversity. Technology has made the world smaller and has also increased transparency in many cases. Given that it has been clearly established that diverse perspectives are key to innovation, what value is gained when discrimination is essentially normalized?

“There is a price to pay for discrimination in the workplace: $64 billion.

That amount represents the estimated annual cost of losing and replacing more than 2 million American workers who leave their jobs each year due to injustice and discrimination.”

Good Michael. “Workforce discrimination costs businesses $64 billion each year”

What is more difficult to determine are the impacts on the discriminated people. The ripples set in motion continue as is evident from the current state of affairs. Looking back at the technology sector, that’s typically where people turn to get an idea of ​​what’s at the forefront of innovation. There are disturbing consequences, beyond the obvious, to the toxic and discriminatory tech culture seen in places like Silicon Valley.

“If we don’t do this now, all of this bias and discrimination will be rewritten into the algorithms, AI and machine learning that drive future technology. Facial recognition technology is already basically sexist and racist. it recognizes women and people of color in the same way it recognizes white men. That’s a big problem”.

McGrane, Claire. Emily Chang on Silicon Valley ‘Brotopia’ and how companies can tackle a toxic culture

The past is connected to the present. Today is that basis for the long term. and since the response from various leaders is often a band-aid approach, progress has been slow and painful. The truth is that hearts and minds cannot be legislated by outside forces, new policies and laws will have painful limits for most. The way forward is deeply personal as a result of the results mentioned here, all emerging from a deeply personal place within the people involved.

The solution

The simple solution starts with the leaders. Smart leaders must embrace personal innovation to lead by example. Policy statements or diversity training that make things worse or provide short-term remedies no longer pass as solutions. Too many studies have shown that those approaches don’t work. But a leader who shows the courage to step up with personal innovation can cultivate a significantly innovative organizational culture that seems to naturally increase market share, launch products and services that lead their industry, and play a vital role in creating a better world.

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