Page 2 - Innovation Skills Profile

INNOVATION SKILLS PROFILE 2.0
The skills you need to contribute to an organization’s innovation performance—
to produce new and improved strategies, capabilities, products, process, and services
CREATIVITY, PROBLEM-SOLVING,
AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT SKILLS
The skills, attitudes, and behaviours needed to generate ideas
You will be able to offer yourself and your organization greater possibilities for achievement when you can:
RISK ASSESSMENT AND RISK-TAKING SKILLS
The skills, attitudes, and behaviours needed to take calculated
risks and to be entrepreneurial
You will be able to offer yourself and your organization greater possibilities for achievement when you can:
Act and Contribute
• Look for new ways to create value in products, processes, services, strategies, and capabilities
• Identify problems and potential solutions—question assumptions, recognize opportunities for change and improvement
• Seek different points of view— ask questions, explore options, solicit feedback
• Be adaptable and exible when challenging ideas, seeking solutions, and solving problems
• Rethink the way things are done— break the mould
Manage and Support Others
• Demonstrate trust in other people’s ideas and actions
• Nurture and promote creativity and inventiveness
• Question and challenge the way you operate—think beyond individual and organizational comfort zones
• Project a vision of where you want to go—keep the big picture in mind
• Approach challenges creatively— think outside the box
• Look for surprising connections— be open-minded, seek and apply knowledge from a wide variety
of elds
• Put forward your own ideas with con dence
• Suggest alternative ways to achieve goals
• Evaluate solutions to make recom- mendations or decisions
• Be open to new ideas and different ways of doing things—commit to continuous improvement
• Monitor successes and failures to nd ways to continuously improve
• Recognize and reward original ideas and ideas for improvement
Act and Contribute
• Be comfortable when pursuing new opportunities—tolerate ambiguity
• Assess and manage risk—be able to identify, quantify, and qualify a risk
• Take appropriate risks and keep your goals in sight
• Be diligent—identify, control, and avoid dangers and threats
• Keep focused on what you are trying to achieve when suggesting alternative ways to get the job done
Manage and Support Others
• Encourage individuals and teams to bring forward new ideas
• Support risk by monitoring and evaluating decisions and actions
• Be resilient in the face of setbacks, mistakes, and potential mistakes
• Envision a future in which your risk-taking has paid off
• Learn from your experiences— don’t be afraid to make mistakes
• Be willing to experiment with new ideas—commit to an action without knowing every outcome or consequence
• Have the con dence to apply your skills in new and unfamiliar situations
• Do not penalize unforeseeable mistakes
• Accept failures and learn from them
• Recognize and reward the pursuit of new opportunities and calculated risk-taking