At Venture Labs, we believe that every employee has the ability to innovate.  We also believe that there’s a stark difference between actually affecting change within your organization and simply thinking that you’re the next great innovator trapped in a stodgy corporate culture.  You prove your innovative spirit by creatively implementing new processes, products, and ideas in a way that meshes with organizational goals.

If you want to begin stretching your innovative muscles, here’s 3 steps you can begin taking right now:

1. Know your tools.  Great innovators have keen awareness of all the tools around them that can help them innovate.  If you want to begin finding new ideas, it helps to begin with all the assets at your disposal.  Include existing processes, peer relationships, data and customer information, the company website and marketing methods...we’ve even seen people list things as basic as internet access, paper clips, and scratch paper.  As ridiculous as this sounds, it forces your brain to think through every possible asset.  Take a few minutes and begin listing all the resources at your fingertips.  Keep the list close for a day or two so that you can add more assets as you think of them.
2. Innovate your service area first.  While you may have the next groundbreaking idea that will chart your company’s path for future decades, you first have to prove that you know what you’re doing and you have to practice.  Start by finding new ways of working within your normal day-to-day, proving along the way that you can create positive results.  The senior leadership of your organization cares about people who can repeatedly prove results.  Conversely, they’re turned off by emerging leaders who think they can overhaul the company.  As you begin putting together a string of successes, you can gradually step into bigger and bigger ideas.  
3. Find your people.  Big things happen when like-minded people come together on a regular basis.  When that collective “like mind” focuses on innovating there’s an exponential impact on an organization.  Find the other people within your organization that like to think creatively and have no problem trying new ideas.  Create a regularly scheduled time to come together to share ideas, learn from one another, and find collaborations.  Aside from surrounding yourself with other smart, driven people, you’ll create a support system to lean on when failures happen and to celebrate successes.

Anyone can innovate.  At Venture Labs, we believe that anyone can chart their company’s course for the future, creating opportunity through new ways of thinking, new processes, and new products. Taking a few simple steps can begin your journey to becoming a change-maker among your peers.

We have created this worksheet to help guide you in how to become a more innovative employee.