Lesson 3

Apologies I realized this never posted originally. Sorry for the delay....

1) Share your interpretation of barriers to innovation. Do they ring true for you? Why or why not?
A fear of failing and not having the support to essentially make mistakes is certainly a barrier to innovation. Another barrier to innovation is not asking questions or allowing others to ask questions. After going through the readings and also the videos this seems to be one of the biggest barriers to innovation combined with a fear of failing. It is pretty evident that innovation cannot exist without questions. One of the videos put this into perspective for me where they talked about that at the root of all innovation is a great question, and that most innovations and breakthroughs were the result of a great question. And in today’s world questions are the new answers. I think in the past and even today sometimes questions can be frowned upon and because so much emphasis is put on the right answers. This is certainly stifling to innovation and growth. I think about when I have to come up with a strategy to address issues or increase performance, I can’t come up with that strategy without sitting with my team to ask them questions. In the past as a new supervisor I did this and it did not work. I’ve learned from my mistakes and I am always asking questions. My team might say I ask too many questions but I learn so much when I ask questions. Lastly innovation is stifled and cannot exist if leaders are content with business as usual. We need to want to always be better and strive to be ahead of the curve. It’s crucial to get out of the mindset of business as usual.

2) Share an example where you tried to innovate and did not succeed. Based on your understanding of the innovation constraints framework, what prevented you from succeeding? What would you do differently with your understanding of barriers to innovation?

Under the WeCARE I contract when I was working under another organization our retention unit was struggling and failing miserably. I couldn’t understand why and there were several different plans I put into place with the team, but we continued to fail. I wanted to come up with a solution, a solution that would make us stand apart from the other organization that had the Region I contract at the time. It wasn’t until it got to a point where none of the strategies were working and I spent an entire Saturday going through paper files upon paper files to try and figure out what the issues were. Doing this I realized it was a process and procedural issue. Had I sat the team down and asked the right questions, I would have figured this out sooner and we could have developed a more proactive strategy sooner. Also being new to this type of work I didn’t know everything there was to know about retention so questions were essential in this case and the plan needed to not just come from me but I needed the team to help in developing this plan. Looking back, one of the things that prevented me from succeeding was this worry of failing, disappointing my boss at the time, and being earlier in my career I was worried about admitting I didn’t know it all. I know now one of the things I would have done is ask the questions, include the team in the solution and also admit to the team that I don’t have all the answers and I don’t know everything. I think also admitting this to my boss at the time could have helped in this scenario. This is something I have become very comfortable with doing as I have grown and moved up in my career. Thankfully I learned from this and many other mistakes I’ve made throughout my career and it has only made me better, and of course positioned me to be innovative and I’m always encouraging my staff to be innovative as well.