Cultivating a Culture of Innovation

6 July, 2017 / Articles

A digital transformation has many factors to consider that organisations often neglect.

It requires a complete overhaul of your culture, your processes, and your thinking to build efficiency and innovation throughout.

Outlining the key aspects within this change was the Bank of Queensland’s Michael Bromley in his opening keynote at CxO Disrupt, Melbourne.

Bromley explored three aspects of driving a successful transformation company-wide through reevaluating motivation, finding creativity and empowering your team.

He started with reshaping the foundations of your team and emphasised the need for an organisation to change their motivation by finding value within purpose and collaboration instead of profit.

By recreating that drive, it enables a step towards an open and progressive structure and moves away from the outdated and restricting legacy systems that linger within traditional organisations.

“We’re trying to move organisations that think primarily about profit and move them to purpose; trying to move from hierarchical structures to a networking structure.”

Through creating this fresh structure and enabling empowerment company-wide it frees employees to be more creative, the back of any innovative organisation.

Bromley spoke on his previous experience at IAG and the importance of diversity across all levels of the company. Bringing in different voices with varied experiences in a variety of fields was one of the first steps in enabling innovation throughout.

“When we started to think about bringing creativity into the organisation, we realised we needed diversity of thought, background and experience. Creative thinkers are critical to real transformation.”

Finally, the right form of leadership is critical to any transformation, with Bromley highlighting the difference between those who lead and those who merely direct those around them.

“Stepping out of the way and letting the people around you make decisions is leadership. Telling them what to do is direction.”

The clear distinction between the two, Bromley suggests is the difference between an organisation that truly encourages innovation, and one that thinks they are, but are truthfully well behind the curve.

Transformation is a tough but rewarding journey. It requires trust and empowerment company-wide to make those key decisions with the best interests of the company in mind.

The science man and innovator, Fernando Fischmann, founder of Crystal Lagoons, recommends this article.

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