Many companies have invested in the collaborative software these days with the expectation to increase their internal innovation or creativity quotient.
But unfortunately the outcome rarely matches the expectations.
When we talk to the HR leaders or Knowledge management leaders, the issues/journey seem to be common irrespective of the organisation.
- There is initial euphoria around the product with complete management involvement.
- Even employee participation is fairly active in the startup period.
- But eventually the tool loses traction.
- The results are middling to poor
- The collaboration doesn’t happen at all, silos remain intact.
- Even for ideation purposes, it doesn’t prove very effective.
This isn’t surprising at all.
This is because organisation start their journeys at the wrong end.
Innovative systems don’t not create engaged employees, engaged employees create innovative systems.
As research by Gallup found that 61 percent of engaged employees feed off the creativity of their colleagues, compared to a mere 9 percent of disengaged employees.
Engagement leads to collaboration.
More innovative companies have more engaged employees. Companies with more engaged employees are more innovative.
We know answer to one question, what creates innovation? And the answer is engagement.
Innovation = engagement = collaboration
But where does engagement come from?
It comes from a very strong, purposeful and differentiated internal brand
Yet very few organisations focus on creating a strong internal brand. As a research shows, 50% of the employees feel that the leaders do not know how to create an engaging culture.
Truth about organisations can be summed like this:
Internal Brand (but mostly ignored), Employee Engagement (mostly just entertainment), Innovation (mostly only spoken)
The truth is an organisation is not a generic space, it is not an extension of the outside world.
Every great organisation is a unique world.
It operates its own specific rules and regulations and laws.
Behaviours and expectations.
To give an example, Army is a unique organisation.
It has laid down to the minutest detail how a member is expected to live and act and behave under its area of influence.
And once these laws are imbibed even the outside world can recognise every member of the army organisation.
Compare this with other organisations, inside one can substitute any employee with another employee from a different organisation and you won’t find any difference.
Generic organisation create Generic products.
Unique creates unique.
The starting point of an irresistible innovative organisation is an extraordinary, differentiated, purposed, engaged internal brand.
Our Model
Rules of creating strong internal brands are no different from the manner in which An organisation approaches the external brand.
Internal branding is not posters on the office walls or a team outing at a resort
In the next post we will cover, Strategy for Building Extraordinary Internal Brand
