How to Build a Culture of Working With Innovation in the Company in a Year

When innovation became one of the prerequisites for success, companies began to think about changes not only in processes, but also in the culture of the team.

One of our speakers, Chief Transformation Officer at Yoola, talked about how to change the way of thinking on the way to innovativeness.

Yoola is one of the largest YouTube affiliate networks. The company, which employs only 100 people in 5 countries. Through them, 140 billion YouTube views are circulated every year. It helps video bloggers and content creators promote and work with Youtube, protects copyrights, and develops content strategy. The business model was invented eight years ago: brands pay money to YouTube, and it pays 50% to the creators of channels through companies like Yoola. The model proved unsustainable, as practice in the U.S. market showed.

Now the company wants to be a hub for Influencers and brands on all platforms and give them a different number of different services. Innovation is needed to participate in this integration.

“It all starts with urgency. When there is a need to change, there is innovation.”

There are two main types of innovation:

  • Open – this is when decisions are made by the whole world, communicating with markets, working with startups.
  • Corporate – to do something inside the company separately, and startups are an additional trend.

If people in the company don’t “hurt”, no innovation will happen. Pain is created through pressure.

“When the picture for executives from rainbow unicorns turns into a market going away, then within 2 days the suspension can change, let’s do something new.”

Steps to innovate:

  • Create urgency.
  • Form a coalition. People who will support it all.
  • Develop a shared vision.
  • Broadcast it. Through meetings, news, chat rooms, etc.
  • Get people fired up for action.
  • Gain quick wins.
  • Consolidate and build growth.
  • Institutionalize change.

What helps?

Books

There are excellent books on the topic of innovation and implementation. “The Body of Knowledge on Change Management.” Osterwalder’s books on the topic of innovation. The book “Influencer – How to Stay Away from Innovators.”

Business Hypotheses

The team generates ideas, hypotheses are built on them, which are tested against some metrics, experiments are conducted, and then the idea goes to implementation.

Metrics

You can’t innovate without metrics. If employees don’t understand what they want to improve, innovations will just be pretty pictures.

OKR – goals and key results

Any innovative activity is presented through the understanding how it will work, what goals will be achieved.

Idea Bank

This is where employees’ ideas are collected. The main thing is to create a suitable free environment for this, where even the most delusional ideas are not ridiculed, but any steps towards change are considered and discussed.

All of this is stitched into the culture. Diagnosing the culture and identifying problem areas helps identify weaknesses. And you don’t have to put out tables and matrices, often just talking to employees saves the day.

“Go to the fields and communicate with your mouth.”

DISC, BELBIN, BIG FIVE

Use time-tested techniques for human resource management and proper allocation of human resources. A person with a systemic mindset will be long and inefficient at generating new ideas. Whereas creative people can miss important metrics when generating ideas. It’s all manageable.

Motivation System

There has to be pay for ideas, for getting them to results, for pumping up skills. Otherwise, all enthusiasm will quickly wane.

The training system

Employees should have regular training. The same action should be repeated at least 5 times, so that it becomes fully and correctly performed.

Facilitation

People who are gathered in a team, who already understand the client, have formed metrics, have been working with the product for a long time – will not come up with anything on their own when the need arises. They need to broadcast and deliver creatives and conduct brainstorming sessions.

Diversity in expertise

All employees should have a different focus of expertise.

Role separation

There shouldn’t be an idea for everyone. There should be shared ideas that the team will work on, with everyone having a role.

Change vs Run

Some people are conservative and some people like change. It’s important to properly separate these people. Creators should start with free development, and people with a systemic mindset show up at the run-in phase of the idea.

Implementing innovation is a complex and fascinating process. And such a process is necessary in any business that wants to continue to exist and develop. Innovation shouldn’t just become a fashion trend. It’s an important, deliberate step on the road to growth.

“You have to change the attitudes in your head and stitch it all together. As long as the executive thinks, ‘We’re doing fine, we just need to work harder,’ it’s not going to work.”