The company has been doing well for years. Sufficient turnover, growth, satisfied staff and shareholders. But then there are external factors that make it difficult for your company. Turnover decreases, less growth and less satisfied stakeholders. You are forced to innovate. Whether it's risky or not, something has to be done. A change is inevitable.
Teams are assembled from all levels of the company for strategic planning sessions. Much depends on the leader of such a team. It should be a discussion leader and not take a dominant position. Sufficient space must be given to ideas. You can steer within that. The discussion leader can also steer towards an idea himself. If this is met, ideas and questions will emerge. It is important that employees do not hesitate to ask a question. By the way, a question is neutral, so there are no naive or stupid questions. Think of it as brainstorming, always approach it positively and elaborate on the subject. Then it can happen that people think, 'yes, we never thought of that before'. Provide space to create an environment for those involved to tackle business problems in an unstructured, non-traditional manner.
Attention should also be paid to doubts about existing and old assumptions. A statement of 'we always do it this way' is immediately open to doubt. Because do you still have the right target group? Are we still on the right social media? Do we still offer the best value proposition? Without a doubt, everything is doomed to failure.
When considering the topics in question, it is good to take a moment to consider whether the wheel has ever been invented. That would save a lot of time.
It is not without reason that the first 100 days at a new company are so important. Within that time you see many solutions, after which it decreases sharply. So employees who have been working there for years are usually in the routine flow. And that flow must be broken.
At the start of the company, there will be a document established on vision, mission, strategy and objectives. It is possible that that document has never been amended again. If this has been kept up to date, this can serve as a starting point, but it can also be determined whether the principles from that time still apply.
Also give space to think oppositely. Such as; What would I do to undermine the company? How could I, as a competitor, harm the company? How can I, as a competitor, negatively influence growth? That can wonderfully shed a completely different light on innovation. Admittedly not tried and tested communication, but it can be enlightening.
A heath day or a heath weekend would also be organised. The disadvantage of this is that it has to be done in one or two days and that does not work that way with innovation. Multiple sessions is a better option.
