New York SBDC Research Network

Follow these rules, and you'll see a dramatic difference in your own team's ability to innovate: 1. Manage Creative Friction The wrong type of friction on teams makes people hate each other and hold back, but the right type gets results. How do you encourage good creative friction? Share the experience. The whole team, including the client, work together through all steps of the ideation process from consumer learning, to analysis of possibilities, to envisioning the final idea. Working with consumers directly to understand their needs and aspirations is an especially powerful bonding experience that gives the team a common sense of purpose, and creates a shared foundation of facts and feelings. Remove communication barriers. People communicate in different ways, so we do social styles analyses to help people understand how their teammates tend to communicate. Are they a driver, amiable, expressive or analytical? They learn that it is not that Harry is necessarily overb...

In most organizations the raw materials of the successful team exist; like dedication to service or professional ability, quality control. Where many, many organizations fall down is in the area of communication, sharing expertise, and a supportive environment. In particular, an appreciation of differing styles of working is essential to the smooth running of any organization. The detail oriented worker cam still have an appreciation of the big-picture worker; the process man can make room for the innovator. Organizations or businesses may have a plan but no process to truly implement it - the goal may be to empower employees but in practice, employees are micromanaged, evidence of a lack of trust. Or there is lip-service to the idea of communication but no process or game plan for dealing with conflict. To read up on teambuilding, check out Free Management Library