Are You A Tesla Or A Ford?

Originally published by Forbes.com.

Tesla just passed Ford in market value. Founded by Elon Musk, Tesla stands out as a beacon of innovation. Ford? Not so much. Don’t get me wrong, Ford is a fine brand — they make some good, reliable cars — it’s just a different brand. The key to being innovative is challenging old assumptions and looking for a new, better way of doing things. Good leaders regularly challenge old assumptions and old patterns of thinking (including their own!) to reach new levels of performance for themselves, their teams and their organizations. Steve Jobs and Richard Branson are known as great innovators, but you don’t have to be an industry icon to be seen as innovative. Here are some ways to facilitate innovation:

Step back

Take time to regularly step back from your current business and look at your product or service offering in a new way so you can conceive of something better. This might involve collecting customer feedback about what they want more of/less of from your product or service, going to conferences or talking with others within your industry or an adjacent industry to see how they do things. You might also take time to reflect regularly about an unmet need or a problem that is yet to be solved in your business or industry before bouncing your ideas off of others.

Crowd source

Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Soliciting ideas from others on a problem you’re working on can yield amazing results. Even better than brainstorming with colleagues, is to go out to your network more widely than these close connections. Social media is great for this — you’re automatically reaching out to a group of people from diverse industries and sectors who may have unique perspectives and ideas to share.

Experiment and iterate

Experimentation is trying out something new in a low commitment way. If it fails, it’s not the end of the world and you’ve got new, useful information to work with so that you can try again more wisely. You may have a great, new idea that you’re passionate about — what’s a small way to test it out without betting the farm?

Adopt a growth mindset

Innovation comes with failure. Just ask Elon Musk. A growth mindset sees failures and mistakes as inevitable and views these experiences as valuable for the learning that they provide. After failing, an individual with a growth mindset does not internalize the failure and see themselves as ‘a failure’ or think that they must not be as smart or as good as they thought. Nor do they think this about their colleagues who might fail or make a mistake. If you want your team (or others around you) to innovate, you need to make it ok to fail. People with a growth mindset chalk up the failure to experience and move on with the knowledge of what worked and what didn’t and why.

So, how innovative are you? Are you a Tesla or a Ford? Regardless of your answer, keep in mind how you can facilitate greater innovation so you don’t go the way of the horse and buggy.