(DRAFT) Innovation Skills to Train at Various Levels

Costa Michailidis -

Innovation is driven by a broad range of creative thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving skills, and attitudes. What to train people on varies depending on the role they play on their team and organization.

Learning Together by Andrew James Ferris

Photo by Andrew James Ferris

The following list is not intended to be perscriptive or complete, but to serve as a starting point. It's here to inspire your own thinking and considerations about what specific innovation skills would be more appropriate for different members of your team and organization.

Individual Contributors

Individual contributors occupy the front lines of your company. They don't have any direct reports, and they are reponsible for a set of deliverables. These days, more and more front line staff find themselves in situations where they need to solve new problems or solve old problems in new ways. This requires them to think creatively.

Skills

  • Reframing problems as challenges, and taking on varying perspectives.
  • Assessing a new problem and identifying the root cause.
  • Generating ideas for potential solutions.
  • Learning from small mistakes.
  • Improvizing solutions (and understanding when not to)
  • Understanding when to pass something up to their managers.

There is an extent to which all members of an organization are Individual Contributors. All managers do some of the work themselves. No one only acts through their constituents. To that end, it serves everyone in the organization to have some creative thinking abilities.

Attitudes

  • Curiosity
  • Healthy Urgency – Get Stuff Done
  • Openess
  • Prudence (Shouldn't being a randical risk-taker)

Front Line Leaders

Front Line Leaders are close enough to the individual contributors to have a strong grasp of the context within which new problems arise. They have one or more direct reports, but a limited set of resources. They are constantly under pressure to hit target results, and typically have little time to support new ideas.

Skills

  • Assessing a new problem and identifying the root cause.

There is an extent to which all members of an organization are Individual Contributors. All managers do some of the work themselves. No one only acts through their constituents.

Attitudes

  • Curiosity (Curiosity is universal. There's a whole post on it here: )