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Amanda Setili explains how innovation is key to the evolution of an organisation, and how leaders can take action to speed the process.

As much as leaders like to talk about innovation, a more accurate term for the process they wish to employ is evolution. Success in business comes from a lot of small actions and insights that accumulate and work to evolve the organization to a completely different state.

In nature, an individual organism mutates and if it proves successful, then that animal is more likely to reproduce and thus perpetuate their proven trait in subsequent generations. That’s how species evolve, and that’s how your organization needs to adapt.

Almost every day, someone in your company comes up with a better idea, tactic or strategy. In most cases, these advances have a relatively small impact because only a few people know about them. Even within a single department, it’s possible for someone to come up with a better idea and keep it to themselves. So, one sales person gets more effective, but her colleagues don’t adopt her approach, because they are unaware of it.

The way leaders speed up evolution is to help their organization establish a habit of identifying and sharing these incrementally better ideas. (In a similar manner, they can help to eliminate weaker ideas that haven’t made the grade.) To be clear, I’m not talking about giving orders from on top, but rather about reinforcing outcomes that have already emerged within your organization.

Key points include:

• Team leadership
• Employee recognition
• Sourcing innovative tactics

Read the full article, Speeding Up the Evolutionary Process of Your Company, on LinkedIn.