Promote Innovation by asking your Employees these 15 Questions

What are you doing to get your employees thinking differently about the opportunities and problems facing your organization?                                         

Trae Tessmann|
November 5, 2018

More and more, organizations are empowering their employees to think critically about the challenges facing them.

 

Still, even with some empowerment it can be difficult to get them to think “differently” about these challenges. If you’re looking to promote innovation and improvement from from the ground-up, check out the thought-starters below.

 

Some questions are similar, but carry different context that can get your employees thinking differently. Some will improve your bottom-line, while others will improve morale and engagement with your employees. Some will simply deliver you insights into what your employees are really thinking.

 

Don’t be afraid of negative responses. These questions are intended to get your employees to open up, expand their creativity, and become more comfortable sharing and acting on their thoughts to promote innovation. Ask a few or all of them, don’t forget to follow-up, and happy innovating!

 

What department (other than yours) should we look at for improvement/innovation?

 

What complaints do you hear on a daily basis?

 

What are our product and service offerings missing?

 

What struggles do you experience on a daily basis?

 

What are your quick wins, small business management ideas that could have a big impact?

 

How can we make your life at work easier or more enjoyable?

 

What would complement our product or service offerings?

 

What would you change if you were CEO?

 

What did you learn or improve this past year?

 

What current or near-future technologies can we implement?

 

What large organization in a different field would you compare us to?

 

What other department do you want to collaborate with?

 

What BIG change should we make?

 

How would Amazon/Tesla/Apple solve this issue?

 

How would you do things different If you were in Marketing/Sales/HR?

 

With proper communication and attention, the above can serve as high-engagement conversation starters, and can set the table to getting your employees to think more critically to promote innovation and about the game-changing challenges you’re facing. Change the mindset of your employees, and realize the benefits “thinking differently” can have on your employees and operations.

 

About Trae Tessmann

Co-founder of Ideawake

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