As a leader, setting the expectations of your team/employees is YOUR responsibility, and is the first step in creating a culture of innovation within your organization.

So, how do you set expectations? Communicate them!

It’s important to communicate your expectations clearly. These expectations should be both what YOU expect from your team/employees, but more importantly, what THEY should expect from you. People need to know that you are serious about working WITH them, NOT just serious about them working FOR you.

Let your team know that you want each and every one of them to know that their ideas and input are as valuable as anyone else’s - including your own. (Stress that last point.)

You should then clearly define how you plan to manage innovation and creative ideas within your organization. Do you have a formal process? (I’ll talk more about this in a future post.)

You then need to lead by example by you yourself meeting and exceeding the expectations that you have set for your organization. This once again means NOT bypassing the system or process you have put in place for managing ideas and creativity. If you set specific guidelines, adhere to them. If you set goals, exceed them. (or at least meet them)

Late last week I had the privilege of talking with someone that opened and ran numerous McDonald’s in the 1970’s.Two things he said really stuck out to me.  One speaks of his own innovative management practices and the other of the leadership of McDonald’s CEO at that time (Fred Turner).

He told me about one McDonald’s he ran in particular, and how he had problems in that area with many of the younger employees.  He came up with a hiring strategy in which he would hire half younger/teenage employees, and half nannies.  What he found was that the nannies would naturally organize, and manage the younger employees.  He said it was so successful that he rarely had to deal with disputes, or really run the store himself.  He would come out of his office, and the nannies that were working would immediately tell him to relax, and assure him that they had everything under control!

What an innovative management strategy!

He also told me something that Fred Turner said to him, and the other 48 managers at the time that were out in the field, growing the McDonald’s business, and opening stores all over the world.  He told them: “When you guys are out in the field, you are the CEO. You make the decisions, and you’ll be right 75% of the time.  And that’s the best rate in the industry.”

Fred empowered his employees to make decisions and he encouraged and inspired them to be the best.

I love hearing stories like these.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about more and more lately, is somehow enabling the next generation user experience for business software.

For far too long, business applications have been built for businesses, not for the people in the businesses that use them.

Rather than approaching the design with the goal of enabling the best, most enjoyable experience for the individual, many ISVs have kept their designs inside the box, and focused solely on the needs of the business.

I may be missing something (and I’m sure I’ve not seen nearly everything), but I’ve yet to see an application that really breaks the mold. One that presents data in a totally new way, or enables a totally new experience for the user. Or one that incorporates some level of fun and enjoyment in the mundane tasks of creating service tickets, accounts, invoices, activity notes, meetings…etc.

If we look at sites/apps such as facebook, twitter, youtube and others, the sites that’s user bases have grown virally at an incredible pace, the three words that immediately come to mind are: personal, networked, and addictive

Personal – All of the above sites present information to the user that is personal and important to the individual user. This is similar to dashboards we see in many business apps. However, that is one single place in the application that is personal. Some applications also provide themes, but not to the extent that some of the social networkings sites provide customization of the overall look.

Networked – All of the above are web based applications, that leverage their network of users to create their core value. This is something I’ve written about in the past, and now Salesforce is just beginning to take this to the next level with their new Salesforce-to-Salesforce capabilities.

Addictive – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… they are all addictive. They have something that makes people want to use them. However, that something can be different for different people, but I venture to say that what ever that something is, it is a direct result of those applications leveraging the network of users as the underlying core value of their offering.

Aside from Salesforce’s recent moves, another great example that is more on the design side is Entellium, and their Rave CRM product. Paul Johnston, Entellium’s CEO talks about the “Gamer Influenced Design” approach here on his blog.

Phil Wainewright also talks about Rave, and the concept of gaming elements applied to business software here.

I’d love to hear what others think, and if you can point me in the direction of some applications that you think are truly breaking the mold, I’d greatly appreciate it.

As part of my series entitled “Creating A Culture Of Innovation”, I highlighted an approach back in August, that I’ve come up with to begin doing just that.

Here’s a great list of questions to ask the first line employees in your organization, to determine whether your organization is really serious about innovation being part of it’s culture. These questions are slightly modified versions of the questions outlined by Gary Hamel in the recent interview with McKinsey and Co.

1) “How have you been trained as a business innovator? What investment has the company made in teaching you how to innovate?”

Yes, this should be filtered down all the way to your companies lowest level employee.

2) “If you have an idea, how much bureaucracy do you have to go through to experiment with it? How long is it going to take for you to get a small percentage of your time and/or a relatively small amount of experimental capital to test your idea? Is it a matter of months, or is it very easy for that to happen?”

This falls in line with the “Nurture” step in my SANE approach. Companies that are serious about innovation being a part of their culture have systems, and processes in place to help nurture ideas. The build it into their budgets, and strategic plans.

3) “Are you actually being measured on your innovation performance, or your team’s innovation? Does it influence your compensation?”

“Put your money where your mouth is”. Companies that are serious about innovation will find ways to compensate employees for their innovative contributions, and provide incentives for continued innovation.

4) “As you look at the management process in your company, do they tend to help you work as an innovator or get in the way?”

This falls in line with the “Execute” step in my SANE approach.

Getting in the way doesn’t just mean getting involved and complicating things. It also means simply not doing everything possible to help innovative ideas that have been supported be brought to life.