What is fueling your company’s desire for innovation? Is there anything even smoldering?
Great inspiration for most companies can come from within. The ideas tend to be lying around all over the place, little different from deadwood waiting for someone to light a match.
So who lights the fires of change in your organization? Are they rewarded for their efforts even if the fire doesn’t catch just right? Do you limit your creative fires to small, safe rings surrounded by hundreds of buckets of water?
As a boy I loved anything to do with fire. Burning leaves, campfires, fireworks, even special effects when my old plastic models looked a bit sad on the shelf. Over time I was taught over and over how dangerous fire can be. Can’t burn leaves. Can’t blow up models. Can’t have fireworks.
To often that is the way people who spark are treated in any organization. Can’t, don’t, ahhhhhh water… We teach them that creative fires must be controlled, allowed to burn in safe little zones.
Soon the sparks fly less and less. The joy of a creative spark disapears and the fear of the work or the hassle or the damage it can do to a career takes over.
Gather up your fuel. Teach your people to spark. Enjoy the Strategic Fire.