It is well known that large companies suffer the challenge of losing their innovative spark. Google, part of the world's most innovative company Alphabet, aims to keep its innovative spark by encouraging individuals to think innovatively.
They have the 10X thinking attitude that allows them to come up with BIG ideas. Rather than saying yes "but", staff are encourage to say yes "and" this is how we would make it happen. In effect removing the negativity and short-sightedness that is so rampant in a typical company's brainstorming sessions, and "away days". This is an approach to creativity that the Innovation Future Specialist has been promoting for a long time: anything is possible, you just have to figure out how to do it.
Another important aspect to keeping an organisation innovative is giving its people the time and freedom to pursue their own ideas, and to develop prototypes. Google allows them to use 20% of their time for this activity. That's effectively one day per week.
This is so important to being a creative and innovative organisation. Some organisations, many organisations, just do not get this. Unbelievably, I know of an innovation department that initially went along with a similar idea, but before the scheme even started the amount of time available for individuals fell from one day per week to half a day per two weeks! So it went from a proposed 20% down to a mere 5%! What sort of creativity would happen in an "innovation department" like that. Part of the problem, in many such organisations, is the attitude of management: traditional thinking only. Until management can see the need for 20% creativity time, their organisation will never be really innovative. For such organisations, "innovation" is nothing more than copying someone else. This negative approach kills all hope of being a leader of innovation.
See how Google do it:
What if you change your yes-but mindset to a yes-and one, asks Google Innovation head
