Innovation Culture Assessment

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗹—𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱? In research conducted with Johnathan Cromwell, Kevin J. Johnson, and Amy Edmondson, we studied more than 160 innovation teams—including those in a Fortune Global 500 company—and found that it's not just how much teams learn that matters, but when and how they learn. We identified four core modes of team learning: 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘃𝗲 — assessing goals, roles, and strategies 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 — brainstorming, prototyping, testing new ideas 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 — scanning the environment for trends, signals, and shifts 𝗩𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 — drawing lessons from others who’ve done similar work The most effective teams didn’t try to do everything at once. They began and ended with reflexive learning, anchoring their work in shared understanding. They placed exploratory learning (experimental and contextual) in the middle. This rhythm—reflection → exploration → reflection—helped them reduce friction, integrate insights, and build real momentum. We also found that vicarious learning can be combined with reflexive learning in the same project phase with positive results. But when teams mixed reflexive with experimental or contextual learning in the same phase, performance suffered. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: Innovation doesn’t thrive on more learning. It thrives on structured learning. Teams that sequence and separate their learning activities make faster, clearer progress. We’ve summarized the findings from our research, published in Administrative Science Quarterly—a leading journal in organizational research—in this new Harvard Business Review article. Link in comments.

Yesterday I finished a case with one of my clients: I was asked to take a research of the moral climate within the company, the NPS fall down, turn over increased... I had to conduct an investigation through several surveys, F2F talks to employees, etc. to understand the reasons behind. And do you know what was the reason? The answer is: the reluctance of certain managers to trust their highly skilled employees, especially those perceived to be more intelligent than themselves. The investigation was aimed to uncover potential motivations and skills deficits contributing to this behaviour and to explore the consequences of such an approach on team dynamics and overall organisational performance. Why do managers hire people? Because it is impossible to know everything, right? Because they do not have enough time to do all by themselves as well. They are lack of skills, resources and it is normal! Please, managers, accept it! Findings: The investigation revealed that some managers displayed signs of insecurity and fear of inadequacy when faced with employees they considered more intelligent. This fear often stemmed from a desire to maintain control and authority, leading to micromanagement and a reluctance to delegate critical tasks. Moreover, the lack of essential leadership skills, such as emotional intelligence and effective communication, hindered the development of trusting relationships with their teams. Consequences: The consequences of this fear-based management approach were evident in decreased employee morale, reduced engagement, and limited opportunities for innovation. High-performing employees felt demotivated, leading to potential talent attrition. The stifling of diverse perspectives and ideas hampered creativity and impeded the company's ability to adapt to changing market demands. Suggested Actions to the HR and SLT Team: HR team will design leadership development programs focused on enhancing emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and effective communication for managers. A culture of trust and open communication must be fostered through all touch points, where employees will feel themselves empowered to share their ideas without fear of reprisal. Cross-functional projects and knowledge-sharing initiatives will encourage to leverage the intelligence and skills of all team members. Through these steps, the HR team aim to build a more inclusive and supportive work environment that nurtured trust, embraced diversity, and empowered both managers and employees to thrive and contribute to the company's success. #culture #employeeexperience #employeeengagement #nps ----------------- I would love to help you to attract right people and foster people strategy that would suit your specific team. Do not afraid to ask any questions :) -----------------

Most leadership teams I start working with are in one of two modes: 👉 1. Build psychological safety without intellectual honesty: everyone’s kind, no one’s challenged. 👉 2. Or they build intellectual honesty without safety: everyone’s smart, no one’s learning. The research published in MIT Sloan Management Review (Jeff Dyer et al., 2023) confirms what I’ve seen in practice: Innovation doesn’t come from ideas alone but it comes from friction that’s safe to hold. The researchers found that organizations fall into 4 cultural types based on two dimensions: psychological safety (can people speak up?) and intellectual honesty (do they tell the truth even when it’s hard?). Their analysis across hundreds of companies revealed that the most innovative organizations combine high trust and high truth-telling. They create conditions where people: • challenge assumptions without triggering defensiveness, • admit uncertainty without losing credibility, • and debate ideas without damaging relationships. In contrast, the majority of workplaces sit in one of the three traps: ⚪ Comfortable cultures (high safety, low honesty) Polite, stable, but stagnant. People withhold critical feedback to “keep the peace.” ⚪ Anxious cultures (high honesty, low safety) Driven, but brittle. Meetings feel like battles; mistakes get hidden. ⚪ Distressed cultures (low on both). Silence, cynicism, and a slow loss of creativity. Only the Innovative culture balances both truth and trust. It’s not psychological safety first and honesty later. They develop together, through the daily micro-behaviors of leaders. That’s the essence of my Safe Challenger Leadership™️ approach: leaders who blend care with candor, trust with tension, and safety with stretch. Because innovation dies from the absence of honest conversations that feel safe enough to stay in. P.S.: What’s harder for organizations in your opinion: making honesty safe, or making safety honest?

One of the clearest signals of whether a transformation is working isn’t in the plan - it’s in the conversations happening in your teams. So pay close attention to the frequency of healthy debate, constructive challenge and openness to new and divergent ideas that takes place. If the frequency is low… …there is the risk of creating the illusion of performance because people readily ‘understand’ each other, agree on everything, collaboration seems to flow smoothly and there is a collective sensation of progress. However, the opportunity cost is teams gets trapped in their own paradigms, opportunities get overlooked, risks ignored - and ultimately their output becomes derivative not innovative, performance diminishes as opposed to improving and compounding. If the frequency is high… …there is a level of psychological safety that allows for team members to be more objective, to speak up with relevant ideas, to constructively challenge each other, and bring their diverse perspectives and experiences to the table - in the knowledge it won’t be held against them. This opens up the opportunity of reframing the paradigm, and connecting different perspectives and ideas. Ingredients for creativity, innovation, resilience and performance. You see homogeneous teams might feel easier, but easy doesn’t translate into Performance. Here are a few ideas to experiment with your teams… 1. Intentionally foster a team environment that replaces scepticism with intellectual curiosity, an open and learning mindset.   2. Consider how you can create a ways of working that allows all ideas and perspectives from everyone in the room to be heard. 3. Encourage dissenting perspectives. Surrounding yourself with people who are willing to disagree with you and challenge your perspectives and each other. 4. Consider whether you may need to invite others to that creative or idea generation meeting to ensure you get a broader perspective. 5. De-stigmatise failure through sharing past mistakes and celebrating lessons learnt. 6. Institutionalise a team culture of healthy candour. Candour is one of the key attributes to improving the quality of output, levelling up creativity and enabling effective collaboration. What would you add? #transformation #culture #psychologicalsafety

"Culture Eats Strategy for breakfast" - Peter Drucker. "SPARK Culture, Strategy feasts for free" - yours truly. Think your company culture is geared for exponential growth? Time for a SPARK check. I shared the SPARK framework in my last post. It's not a fancy acronym. It's a blueprint to fight growth stagnation. 🆂 - Supporters 🅿 - Permission 🅰 - Ambition 🆁 - Resilience 🅺 - Kaizen But blueprints don't build houses, actions do. Ready to light a SPARK in your org culture? Let's go. 🎯 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 1: 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤 Grab a pen. It's scorecard time. Rate each element from 1-10: Supporters: __/10 Permission: __/10 Ambition: __/10 Resilience: __/10 Kaizen: __/10 Total it up. What's your score? Don't worry, it's not a test. It's a starting point. 🎯 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 2: 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭 𝐆𝐚𝐩𝐬 Low scores aren't failures. They're opportunities. But you need to dig deeper. Ask yourself: - Supporters: Who's pushing your team to grow? - Permission: Can your team take smart risks? - Ambition: Do your goals make you sweat? - Resilience: Do challenges make you stronger? - Kaizen: Is improvement your daily habit? Be honest. It's just you and the screen. 🎯 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 3: 𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 Now the fun part. 🆂 Supporters: Build a Growth Squad - List your organization's mentors and challengers. - Rate how much they support and stretch the team. - Find the gaps. Fill them. Try this: Host "Diversity Dinners". Invite someone from a different industry. Watch your perspective expand. 🅿 Permission: Unleash the Risk-Takers - Launch "Failure Fridays" - Share flops. Celebrate lessons. - Watch innovation soar. Go further: Create "Experiment Budgets". Allocate resources for new ideas. Send a clear message: Innovation isn't just allowed. It's required. 🅰 Ambition: Dream Bigger, Achieve More - Build a "Moonshot Wall" - Display your wildest goals - Let them inspire daily action Challenge: Try "10x Thinking". Don't improve by 10%. Aim for 1000%. Watch minds expand. 🆁 Resilience: Turn Setbacks into Comebacks - Run "Stress Testing Sprints" - Introduce controlled challenges - Build collective resilience Pro tip: Create a "Resilience Playbook". Document past victories over obstacles. Use it to tackle future challenges. 🅺 Kaizen: Small Steps, Giant Leaps - Start "Kaizen Connects" - Share one improvement made - Plan one for today - Watch small changes compound Bonus: Launch "Learning Logs". Dedicate time to new skills. Grow together. SPARK isn't a one-time thing. It's a journey. And my favourite part: 𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧'𝐭 𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝. 𝐓𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐟𝐥𝐲𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐥. Boost 🚀 ambition? You'll need more permission. Increase permission? Resilience 💪 grows. Enhance resilience? Kaizen 📈 becomes natural. It's a virtuous cycle. But it starts with you. So, which element will you ignite today? Share your thoughts. Inspire others. #LinkedInNewsAsia #Innovation #Management #LeadershipAdvice #OrganizationCulture

86% of Breakthrough Innovations Happen When We Pause to Wonder "What If?", Yet Most Leaders Fill Calendars Too Full for Curiosity Scrolling through LinkedIn on this relaxed Saturday morning, Khozema Shipchandler's celebration of Twilio's 400th patent caught my attention. His words about innovation being "our engine" rather than just a buzzword resonated deeply as I sip my coffee, mind wandering beyond weekday constraints. What truly powers innovative cultures and discovered fascinating patterns: → Space Creates Breakthroughs Organizations that build legitimate "think time" into workweeks see 3.7x more employee-generated innovations. Companies with protected thinking hours experience significant creative output, yet 78% of knowledge workers report having zero unstructured thinking time. ↳ As Khozema noted, each innovation represents "a spark of curiosity, a bold idea, & the drive to build something new" → Psychological Safety Drives Bold Thinking Teams with high psychological safety produce 41% more innovative solutions than peers. When employees feel secure taking risks without fear of ridicule, organizations experience 37% fewer implementation failures and 2.5x faster idea-to-market cycles. → Cross-Pollination Transcends Boundaries Our analysis shows 68% of transformative business ideas originate from outside industry frameworks, often sparked during moments of relaxation or unexpected connections that traditional work structures rarely accommodate. ↳ Organizations breaking down silos see innovation rates triple compared to those with rigid department boundaries Cultivating Curiosity-Driven Culture ✦ Inspiration Catalysts – Install physical and digital spaces where employees share articles, ideas or thoughts that sparked "what if" moments, creating continuous innovation triggers. ✦ Celebration Rituals – Implement storytelling practices highlighting both successful innovations and valuable "productive failures," reinforcing that exploration is valued alongside execution. ✦ Connection Architecture – Design both physical and digital environments that facilitate unplanned interactions across functions, knowing innovation thrives at intersections. ✦ Reflection Rhythms – Build regular pauses into organizational cadence—like I'm enjoying this Saturday—where stepping back allows patterns and possibilities to emerge. The most innovative organizations recognize that building creative culture requires both structure and space—systems that nurture curiosity while providing the safety and resources to transform questions into impact. What's one unexpected source that's sparked your best innovation? Love exploring possibilities, Joe PS: We are building People Atom, the private network where forward-thinking HR leaders and founders learn to balance structured execution with creative exploration to transform innovation cultures. Our first private roundtable for CHRO's is scheduled on July 11th in Chennai (DM me for details)

What if I told you the biggest profit leak in your business isn’t in your P&L? 📉 It’s in your team meetings. Since 2020, psychological safety in the workplace has dropped 25%. That’s not just an HR stat. That’s revenue walking out the door. When people don’t feel safe to speak up: 🟡 67% of innovation dies before it’s voiced 🟡 Problems stay hidden until they explode 🟡 Your top talent silently updates their resumes I recently worked with the Chief People Officer of a 500-person tech company. Their exec team swore by their “open door” culture. But their highest performers were leaving. We ran a diagnostic. The result? A $3.2M psychological safety gap. As a neuroscience-trained executive coach, I’ve seen this play out over and over. Because when the brain perceives threat, it shuts down innovation. It’s not mindset. It’s biology. We measured their gap through: Communication patterns in meetings (who speaks, who’s interrupted) Response time to bad news vs. good news Error reporting and recovery speed Cross-functional collaboration frequency Then we quantified the cost: • $1.2M in turnover • 23-day decision latency • 3 missed product cycles • 12% drop in NPS from disengaged frontline teams I’ve been there myself. Early in my career, I watched brilliant culture initiatives die, not because they didn’t work, but because no one could prove the ROI. That’s why I created the JOY Framework™. It helps leadership teams hardwire trust, velocity, and innovation into their culture no trust falls required. When we implemented it with their team: ✅ Innovation proposals rose 34% ✅ Time-to-decision dropped 28% ✅ Retention improved 22% All in under 90 days. Here’s what most leaders miss about psychological safety: The early warning signs are operational: 📌 Same 2–3 people dominate meetings 📌 “This is fine” becomes the standard reply 📌 Feedback only shows up anonymously And in hybrid teams? The signs are digital: • Cameras off • Private chats spike • Tough conversations disappear from email The biggest resistance I hear? “We already have an open-door policy.” But an open door means nothing if people believe walking through it will cost them later. CPOs, Heads of Talent, and People Ops leaders: Your next competitive edge isn’t just in your people strategy. It’s in your ability to quantify the culture you’re building. I’m opening 3 spots this month for JOY Breakthrough Calls for senior leaders ready to turn culture metrics into business momentum. Comment “MEASURE” or DM me directly, and I’ll send you the details. Let’s turn trust into ROI.

After leading teams across the globe, I've learned this: The best ideas come when different minds work together. Most companies get diversity wrong. Here's what works: 1. Reimagine "Culture Fit" as "Culture Add" → Stop hiring people who think just like you. Fresh perspectives lead to better solutions. 2. Welcome New Ideas → Some team members may hesitate to speak up based on their culture. Create ways for everyone to share ideas comfortably. 3. Listen to the Quiet Ones → Your quietest team members might have the best ideas. Find ways to hear from everyone, not just the loudest voices. 4. Make Language Work For You, Not Against You  → Great ideas don't need perfect English. Give people different ways to share their thoughts. 5. Learn from Differences → Each culture has unique ways of solving problems. Use these differences to your advantage. 6. Build Psychological Safety Through Action → People share their best ideas when they feel safe. Create an environment where everyone can take risks. 7. Measure What Matters Look beyond basic diversity numbers → Look at how often diverse perspectives influence major decisions Remember: Building a diverse team isn't the finish line - it's the starting point. Real success comes from creating an environment where different voices don't just exist - they thrive.. Does your team make it easy for everyone to contribute their best ideas? — 👋 I'm Simmer Singh, helping organizations build teams where everyone can make a difference. What's your biggest challenge in building innovative teams? Share below.

Culture isn't about ping pong tables—it's how you treat people when they fail. 20 years coaching leaders at Amazon, Walmart, etc. Taught me this powerful idea: Creativity dies when leaders punish mistakes. I’ve done over 10,000 coaching sessions. Here are the 5 key principles I teach about building truly innovative teams: 1. Most execs say they want innovation. But the moment someone fails, everything changes. The pattern is obvious: companies throw money at innovation programs but create a culture where people are too scared to take risks. Then they act confused when the only ideas they get are safe and boring. Your team is always watching how you react when things go wrong. I once worked with a senior leader who praised "failing forward" in public. But he’d rip into anyone who missed a target behind closed doors. His team caught on fast: innovation was just lip-service. A buzzword. 2. We talk about “culture” like it’s a product you can buy. But culture shows itself when things fall apart—when a project flops, when goals aren’t hit, when someone screws up. In weak cultures, failure can ruin your career. People hide mistakes. Blame spreads. And innovation dies quietly. They say “fail fast” but really mean “fail silently.” I’ve worked with execs who couldn’t figure out why their teams stopped taking risks. At one Fortune 500 company, I asked the team, “What happens when someone makes a mistake here?” The awkward silence said everything. 3. Success isn’t the test. Failure is. In our workshops, we’ve found three things that show a team has a strong culture: • Ask questions before judging • Focus on learning instead of blaming • Look for solutions, not punishment This builds psychological safety. And that’s the foundation for innovation. I’ve seen it turn struggling teams around at Lockheed Martin and Cigna. Once leaders changed how they handled failure, innovation took off. 4. Strong cultures treat failure as a lesson. Leaders ask “What did we learn?” instead of “Who messed up?” The truth about innovation? It’s built on small failures. Every misstep is progress—if you let it be. Your ping pong table doesn’t define your culture. How you handled the last failure does. 5. The best leaders aren’t always the smartest or most experienced. They’re the ones willing to create psychological safety. We’ve built a system that helps teams do that in 30 days. If you're an HR leader trying to build high-performing, innovative teams, click on the link in the comments ⬇️ Thanks for reading! If you found this valuable, repost for your network ♻️

You can't find all the answers in the P&L. David Dillon made a comment on my post the other day about "the dashboard can't predict everything" and I do believe that is something we as leaders in the business often lose sight of. It is said people are our greatest assets, but do we empower them that way? They say there is no "I" in TEAM, but here are some "I"s that will help build a strong team. Innovation ~ creativity to try new ways, be curious as how they can improve what we have trained them to do. The more people do a task, the more they improve on a task, they more creative they get with that task (in the right environment). Are we allowing those who do the work to try new ways or do we make them do it "the say we've always done it" which can be the kiss of death? Input ~ Everyone has value and may have insights we don't have. In one situation, our mechanic re-engineered a truck so we could mount a blower to the front of it. It allowed us to save hours off of a public bid and kept our people out of heavy traffic. It was the mechanics idea and it saved hundreds of hours per year, allowing us to secure a contract worth over a quarter of a million dollars a year. All because our mechanic had an idea and we listened. He had never cut a blade of grass in his life professionally, but he was key in our success. Because he had an idea and we listened to his input. Initiative ~ a culture of people stepping up to take care of what they see as issues in the yard, in the field, in the office. With people who treat the business like they are spending their own money, everyone takes more initiative, which is needed to be more efficient. If a crew leader has to call his direct report every time he has to make a unique decision in the field, we are wasting time, two peoples time. How do we equip our people with the knowledge and confidence to take that initiative so we can all get more done? It is with a Leaders Building Leaders approach (which will also allow us to build a true bench, not just a roster). Would our mechanic ever had the initiative to share that idea if it hadn't been encouraged in our culture? These three traits will almost never show up on a dashboard but they will help effect the P&L in ways that cannot be predicted nor planned for. These are traits that come from building a culture of next person up, whatever it takes as long as it is legal and ethical, a culture of doing what others aren't willing to do to succeed and it starts at the top, but it also starts at the bottom ( we can talk about that later). Do you exhibit these traits in front of your team, do you allow them to Innovate, to have Input, to take Initiative? The possibilities are there if you lead the right way.