Buying new technology will not make your company innovative. It may give your people new capabilities, but technology alone will not imagine a better way to serve your customers. Only people can do that.
Artificial intelligence and automation have changed what organizations can accomplish. Challenges that once seemed too difficult or expensive are now within reach. We now know we can accomplish more, but wonder if our people are willing and empowered to imagine a better way.
At Gresham Smith, we have built our culture around the belief that innovation starts with people. Technology is a powerful tool, but people must decide where to apply it and what problem it should solve. Becoming an innovative company means building a culture where everyone feels responsible for challenging the status quo.
BUILD THE CULTURE
Here are five strategies that can help build that culture.
1. Put people before technology
Too many innovation efforts start backward. Leaders spot an impressive new technology and immediately ask how the company can use it.
Reverse the order. Start with your people and the work they do. Ask where they hit friction, which processes no longer make sense, and what they would change if old limitations disappeared. Once you understand the opportunity, then look at how technology can help.
AI and automation can make a redesigned process possible, supporting the idea, not defining it.
2. Make innovation everyone’s job
Innovation should not live in a lab or a committee. The people closest to the work usually see most clearly what needs to change.
Employees do not need “innovation” in their title to contribute. They need to understand that noticing problems and questioning assumptions are part of their jobs. They can then propose better approaches.
That message must come from leadership, consistently. People need to hear that innovation is expected. They also need to see leaders support and recognize those who act on it.
3. Create safety to challenge accepted practices
You cannot ask people to challenge the status quo and then get defensive when they do. Many established practices exist for good reasons. Others survive only because “that is how we have always done it.” Employees need the psychological safety to question both.
Leadership’s response matters most. When someone challenges an existing approach, the first reaction should be curiosity, not justification. Ask what they are seeing. Find out why the current process falls short. They question what a better outcome could look like.
Not every challenge will lead to a new solution. But shutting down questions too quickly teaches people to stop asking them.
4. Turn ideas into disciplined experiments
Psychological safety does not require you to pursue every idea. It means giving worthwhile ideas a fair shot. Build a clear path from observation to small experiment. Define the problem, name the assumption being tested, set reasonable boundaries, and decide what the team hopes to learn.
The goal of an experiment is learning, not certainty. If the results do not support the original idea, the effort was not a failure. A well-designed test can prevent a much larger investment in the wrong solution, or point the way to a better one.
5. Share what you learn
Innovation becomes part of the culture only when people can see it happening.
Tell the stories: the employee who questioned an accepted practice, tested a different approach, and applied what they learned. Celebrate the wins, but also talk about the experiments that produced useful insight without becoming permanent solutions.
These stories show employees that innovation is accessible and valued. They also help lessons travel across teams instead of staying trapped in one project or department.
Technology has opened a new world of possibility, but access to powerful tools does not automatically make an organization innovative. That takes people willing to think differently, and leaders willing to make it safe for them to do so.
Here’s a good place to start: Ask which long-standing process your people would redesign if they knew they had permission.
Mike Sewell is chief digital transformation officer at Gresham Smith.